A Doctor Lost, A Doctor Found
by kinkybootbeast
Summary: Two years after the Doctor left her with his duplicate, Rose's Doctor is ripped away from her in a freak accident at Torchwood. She manages to follow him, but has no way to find him. No way ... but she does still have the number for the TARDIS' phone.
1. The End of the Beginning

"Do you have the stopover device?" asked Rose, flicking a few buttons on the dashboard in front of her like she'd been shown. "Levels rising. Two minutes." The rest of the Torchwood crew had gone on emergency assignment, leaving Rose and the hybrid Doctor to take over on rift shift, as they called it. Occasionally, since a few years before, the activity in the time rift where Cardiff stood would fluctuate, swallowing creatures from around the universe and spitting them out erratically within a mile's radius. The device the Doctor held, when slid correctly into the rift-powered generator, would concentrate the expelled energy to one spot and simulate a universal wall against the coming extraterrestrials.

"Yes, yes, I've got it. Don't be daft," the Doctor muttered, slipping the leaden vest over his brown suit.

"You've got to do this quickly, Doctor," Rose told him. "Quickly and properly, you understand? The energy will push against the wall, but you _can't_ let it falter. Or else we're dealing with a room full of different species, and I doubt very much we'll all get along."

The Doctor smiled his lopsided, never-fear grin at her, tilting his head. "Look at you, Rose Tyler. All spacey-sciencey. Makes a time traveler proud."

"One minute thirty," Rose said, trying to hide her smile under professionalism. "You'd better get over there."

"Oh, you're treating me like I've never done this before," he scoffed.

"Have you?"

"Well, no, not particularly, but I understand the concept."

"Then get over there! One minute!" Rose said breathlessly.

"One more thing." He put a hand on the back of her head and pulled her in for a recently-discovered kiss. She closed her eyes, losing herself in the moment. Then the Doctor was gone, and she opened to find him slipping on heavy-duty gloves.

"What was that for?" she murmured, turning back to Toshiko's monitors.

"Just in case," he said brightly, picking up the flat, disc-like machine by the handle.

"We've done this dozens of times."

"Oh, don't say that, that's worse than 'Nothing could possibly go wrong!'" the Doctor complained. Rose rolled her eyes at his superstitious manner.

"I'd say you've seen too many films lately. Twenty seconds," she told him, and he lifted the monstrous plate with a grunt, holding it to the slot. She counted him down from ten, and he pushed the stopover in with an effort on 'one'. The tower in the middle of the base lit up dramatically, veins of blue-tinged electricity dancing over the opaque Plexiglas cover. It was moment before the Doctor began struggling against the pressure building in the disc. Rose bit her lip, even though she knew the skinny man was a lot stronger than he seemed. She kept pressing buttons, controlling the wave of energy into their tower, against the disc where it couldn't do any harm.

"Rose…"

"Just keep holding on, Doctor, it's almost done," she muttered, eyes trained on the screen in front of her. The blustery noises grew louder, more oppressive, but the levels on screen were relatively normal. Rising a little more than usual, but that happened sometimes.

"Rose…!"

"What is it?" she asked, looking up. He strained against the tower, teeth bared as scarlet voltage swarmed against the protective gloves.

"Is it supposed to be going red like this?" he shouted over the noise.

"It does sometimes, it's just the tower converting the surge! That'll be from Alpha-6 then, not Zun Centrat like I thought!" The keyboard clicked under her fingertips, almost rhythmically, as she entered the new data. She could distantly hear the Doctor's roar of effort, similar to Ianto's when he had to hold the device. The force was so powerful that Rose couldn't even fight against it. And she was quite resilient for her size.

"This can't be normal! What's going on with the scanner?" the Doctor yelled, and she barely heard him.

"Levels a little higher than normal, but it's built-up! We haven't had a swell like this in a while!" Rose answered, furiously clicking and flipping switches. "How does it feel?"

"Like wrestling a rhinoceros!"

"You've fought a rhinoceros?"

"Well, not Earth-rhinoceroses – it's what I assume fighting a rhinoceros would feel like!"

Rose sucked in a breath. If the Doctor was having trouble with it … maybe the surge was more than they'd expected. But the levels.

"Rose! I can't hold it!" bellowed the man, feet slipping.

"Put your feet against the stops in the floor!" she instructed him, feeling overwhelmed. Suddenly a red light went off above her head, and they both looked up. The distress signal was faint against the noise, but it echoed in her ears. She'd hoped she'd never have to hear that.

"_Doctor!_" Rose screamed. The din pressed against her on all sides, and it was driving her mad. "What do I do?"

"Are the levels in red-10 or MT-4?" he shouted back, panicked.

"MT-4!"

"That's wrong! Switch them over!"

It took her a moment in her flustered state, but she managed to change the measurement like he said. The screen suddenly flashed white and the revised numbers she saw terrified her.

"Holy _shit_! They're off the charts!" she yelled, voice breaking. "We've never had a surge like this before!"

"I know! Get over here and help me!" he spat through clenched teeth. Rose leapt over the railing and landed beside him, grabbing onto the handle. She only wore her lab gloves, but it seemed to do, though the sparks penetrated and stung her fingers.

"We can do it, Doctor!" she said, straining.

"Stop – saying – words!"

They managed to press the device all the way in its slot with a bit of effort and hold it. A sudden quick beeping pierced away from the computer and she looked over her shoulder.

"It's losing direction!" she said worriedly.

"Well, get over there and punch in your numbers, spacey-wacey!" the Doctor groaned.

"Can you keep it steady?" she asked worriedly.

"Yes, yes, I'll manage! Go!"

She gave the device one final drive and leapt back to the computer. With a few clicks she'd redirected the flow back to the tower like a lightning rod, but that only increased the pressure against the Doctor. He shouted her name but she couldn't hear the rest. She watched helplessly, unable to leave her station, dancing on the balls of her feet as she tapped redirection keys. The Doctor was slipping, suddenly he was behind the footholds. With nothing to grip, the plate was pushing him away. He was shouting something, but she couldn't make it out. She leaned over the desk, and caught a few words.

"…there must be … lock the device…!"

She shook her head roughly, fright flooding through her. The locking mechanism had broken a few months before and none of them knew how to fix it. It must have been Jack Harkness' doing, before Bad Wolf had wiped him out of existence in that dimension. They'd never had a surge they couldn't control before though, none like this.

"I can't-!"

Suddenly the Doctor was on the floor, holding the hefty apparatus in one hand, the other in front of his face to brace against the blue energy streaming from the tower. Rose clapped a hand over her mouth, and sprinted to his side.

"No!" he shouted at her. "Get to the vault! Lock yourself in!"

"I'm not leaving you!" she protested vigilantly, and he grabbed her, tucking her under one arm and folding his lanky form around her. Rose looked out under his arm to see ghostly shapes gathering in hordes around them, filling every inch of the base.

"No wonder the energy was so high," he murmured, and the quiet tone scared her more than the shouting.

"What do we do, Doctor?" she asked, trying to pry his arm away so she could see.

"Well, we can hope they're all peaceful and none happen to be violent killers," he said, then suddenly pulled away, standing up. The noise had dissipated with the arrival. "Or, _OR_, Rose Tyler, we could reverse the divergence on the program before they get here completely, and at the same time temporarily reduce the holding capacity and _with any luck_, send them _back_."

"If you reduce the capacity, won't that send us with them, or kill us?" she asked fearfully.

"No, because we'll be in the vault. Now get down there," he told her as he dived behind the controls and began furiously mashing keys.

"You don't have your screwdriver, though!" she reminded him fearfully, pulling herself up behind him.

"Which only makes me all the more brilliant!" he winked at her, and she sobbed a smile, before he pointed her out of the room.

"You're coming too, right?" she asked. He didn't answer. "Doctor!"

"Yes, yes, shut up! This is really, _really_ complex and you're not helping!"

She looked around at the misty, humanoid shapes and bit her lip. "They could just be people, Doctor…"

"The footprint doesn't look like the boot, remember?" he told her forcefully, pulling a lever. "Now get out!"

"I am _not_ leaving you!"

"You won't be! I'll be right behind you!"

"Don't lie to me, Doctor!"

He paused his work and grabbed her by the shoulders. The look in his eye was animalistic, and she cringed. "You – have – to – go!"

"I won't!"

The Doctor threw up his hands with a shout of frustration as he turned back to the controls. Rose felt horrible, but there was no way she was leaving her Doctor in any amount of immediate danger, not again. She watched the beings in terror as they began to take more definitive shape, and the Doctor grew more and more impatient.

"Doctor…" she murmured as something with the face and pincers of a bug turned towards her.

"There! I've got it!" he shouted triumphantly.

"Let's go then!"

"No time!"

Before she could fathom this response he'd reached over to grab the protective lead blanket Owen used for x-rays and threw it over her, pulling them both to the ground. Everything went dark as she struggled and shouted against the Doctor's arms. The windy noise had started up again, until suddenly all clamor died. Rose breathed deeply, realizing she had no force to fight against anymore. Slowly she stood up, pulling away the plastic, lead-lined material.

"Doctor?" she whispered. But the room was completely empty.


	2. In Shock

She was still pulling levers and pressing buttons desperately when the crew returned. At first she'd been in shock, wandering around and looking at monitors and numbly trying to comprehend the situation. Now she couldn't stop sobbing.

"Rose?" asked Gwen from the doorway, her round Welsh accent cutting through the furious attempt to work the machinery.

Rose turned to her, face crumpling beneath the weight of the abandonment she was feeling as her arms fell uselessly to her sides. "Make him come back," she begged, voice breaking. "Gwen, make him come back! Tosh!"

They just stood there, confused and worried, until Ianto broke through them and tucked Rose into his arms. She began to weep distressingly into his suit jacket, and the others gathered around them.

"Rose? What happened? Where's the Doctor?" asked Gwen, putting a hand on her shoulder. The tears came too quickly and Rose found herself choked, unable to render a single explanation coherently. She'd lost the Doctor twice before and it had almost killed her, but this felt even worse. She'd thought he was hers forever. There wasn't a single thing that could possibly come between them again, not vortexes or Cybermen or Daleks or reality bombs. Nothing. Normal life was supposed to secure them, secure _him_. He was the _one certain thing_. But he _had_ to be the hero.

They kept asking her questions, questions that she couldn't answer. Ianto was the only one who was quiet, just holding her and anchoring her down. When the words finally came, Toshiko bounded for her station, clicking and dragging and bringing up histories. The grim, hopeless expression on her face only made Rose break down again.

"It's impossible," Rose heard the soft voice vaguely, as if through a tunnel. "The rift's generator created a sort of wormhole. The energy levels are astronomical. The Doctor shut off anything coming this way." She fixed her glasses on her nose. "If you think of it like a train that can move both directions … he's broken the 'reverse' lever. He had to."

"What does that mean?" Rose asked desperately.

"It means…" Tosh hesitated. "He can't come back, Rose."

"What do you mean, 'can't come back'? Just open it back up again!" Rose tore out of Ianto's hold, pressing herself beside the small woman, suddenly frustrated.

"I can't do that. He's sealed it, he locked down everything. If I opened it again … it could mean a release of energy so powerful it destroys this dimension. Possibly all dimensions."

Rose's heart sank. She turned from the monitors, turned to see everyone looking at her pitifully, sorrowfully. She couldn't stand the look, and it threatened to spiral her from anger back into relapse.

"Send me after him," she commanded Tosh, wiping her eyes on her sleeve.

"Rose, I can't…"

"Send me _after him_!" she shouted, making Toshiko jump in alarm. "If you can't bring him back, send me with him!"

"It'll destroy you!"

She stopped. "Destroy me?" Rose whispered.

"Yes." Tosh looked concerned, hesitant. "The wormhole is too powerful, too raw. It would rip you to shreds in a second."

A hand rose to her mouth and she took a step back. "Then the Doctor…?"

"I'm sorry, Rose…" Tosh said softly. "I'm so, so sorry … he couldn't have…"

But Rose found herself running from the base before she could hear the rest.

xxx

The apartment was empty as well. So many times before, Rose had come home from work to find the Doctor lounging around, eating some kind of food and watching some kind of space program, making objecting moaning noises at the telly. Since he was – had been – an outside consultant for a little more than a year until she got his identification sorted out, he'd gotten paid a lot more than her for doing a lot less. At first she'd been sullen about it, seeing as she'd worked at Torchwood for two years longer, but the Doctor insisted on sharing everything. Now she'd have to have it all to herself.

She shouldn't have expected him to be there watching his documentaries, but she couldn't breathe when she opened the door to a man's voice that sounded like his. She'd completely imagined it of course; it was David Attenborough, prattling on in his round, warm voice about blind cave creatures. Leave it to the Doctor to watch a documentary about the planet he was on, the only one he could visit.

Rose wandered over to the cupboard and pulled out a box of biscuits. She found it hard to think about anything. She wasn't happy … but she supposed she was just in shock. She ate half of a biscuit, but her mouth was too dry to swallow it. She spat it in the bin and rinsed with water, trying not to think about that man, in any way, shape, or form. But it was hard when the red converse he'd insisted on buying sat by the door, not yet worn; when his blue suit was hung up to dry, the same suit as the first day; when sketches he'd done for her in charcoal of aliens and the TARDIS hung, framed, on the walls, when that stupid documentary about caves pounded in her ears.

She tried to act normal. She numbly went to the grocer's and got some milk, picked up their dry cleaning, sat on her bench in the park for four hours without noticing the time. It was dark when she fiddled the key in the lock again, and still she felt as if she should be coming home to the Doctor. How could she not? How could she tell herself he was gone, forever?

The voicemail was beeping when she got in. The documentary was long over and an ad for Tesco was on. Rose flipped off the television and put the messages on speaker. There were four from Ianto, the front desk of Torchwood, one concerned one from Gwen's mobile, and sixteen from her mother. She flipped through them quickly, dully, impassively, deleting every one. Maybe if she could just erase the day. Wake up to hear the Doctor shuffling around again, to that brilliant smile he had when he was cooking up something 'fun' for them to do. Usually the fun involved breaking into some restricted area that he had a hunch about, or interrogating the neighbors, trying to find _something_ wrong he could fix.

Rose went to bed three hours earlier than usual with no supper. She couldn't eat. She spent the extra three hours and more twisting and knotting her hair, staring at the ceiling, staring at the spot beside her where the Doctor sometimes joined her if she couldn't sleep. Had. Had sometimes joined her. Distantly she heard the phone ring twenty or so times, but couldn't pull herself up to answer it.

It was three in the morning when she turned to press the pillow against her face, moaning and trying to think of anything else. Anything.

She couldn't.

xxx

Rose woke up the next morning on the couch, with no recollection as to how she ended up in the living room, David Attenborough chattering informatively outside her dreams as well. She couldn't remember the hallucinations, only that they involved wind and blue light and her best friend in pinstripes and a thick vest. The loud rapping that had eventually roused her from her slumber kept on going, and she looked over.

"Doctor, are you-"

It took her a moment before the heavy feeling of guilt and dread and loss settled on her again. She dragged herself to her feet groggily to answer the door, and found herself wearing the blue suit jacket over her tank top and knickers. The thick material smelled like coriander and the ocean and some bright smell from far off.

"Rose-!" called a familiar, harassed voice from the outside. "Rose, open up, sweetheart, where are you?"

It took her a moment to remember the motor functions needed to open a door, and another moment to put them to use. When she'd finally gotten the locks undone and the door open, she found her mother, looking panicked and distraught. For what seemed like ages they just stared at each other. "Mum?" Rose murmured, as if she couldn't comprehend the sight. It had been a while since they'd seen each other, but that wasn't it. Something was off about the morning.

Then Jackie Tyler swept her up into a gigantic hug, and Rose began crying again, except this time it seemed like she couldn't stop.

"Rose, what happened to you? Where were you? I must've called fifty times yesterday … oh, angel, let's just sit you down. I'll put on the tea. Dad's in the car with Tony, but they can wait."

Rose found herself back on the couch, still in just her pants and the Doctor's blazer, hair a mess and make-up smeared and eyes puffy and head pounding. She pulled the knitted blanket back over herself and let her head rest on the back of the couch.

"Ianto Jones called me and said there'd been some kind of an accident, and I should talk to you," Jackie said gently, putting a steaming cup of chamomile into Rose's clenched hands. She obviously knew this was a delicate matter, because she wasn't shouting. "We drove all the way up because you wouldn't answer your phone. Where were you all day?"

"Getting milk," Rose forced out, and sipped the soothing liquid.

"He said you left at four. I was calling well into the night." Jackie looked around at the mess of an apartment. "Blimey, you don't live very tidily do you? Where's the Doctor? I should speak to him about doing the dishes once in a while…"

Rose swallowed, staring into the depths of her amber tea. "The Doctor's gone, mum."

"What do you mean, 'gone'? Gone where?"

Rose couldn't answer. She couldn't make the words come, and instead focused on the lump rising in her throat. Jackie stared at her expectantly, and then it seemed to dawn on her. "The accident at Torchwood…?" she asked softly. Rose barely nodded. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm sorry … what happened? Is he all right?"

She shrugged, fresh tears springing to her eyes again, the gesture seeming so undervalued compared to the emotions attacking her from all sides. "I don't know," she murmured, voice rising. "I don't know, he's gone and it's my fault, and he might be dead because of me! He _is_ dead because of me!" She took shaking breaths. Jackie pulled her under her arm again, and Rose settled into the comforting bosom.

"Do you want to come and stay with us for a while?" asked Jackie, stroking her knotted, tangled hair with one hand. "We have plenty of room."

Rose almost said no, almost said she would be okay on her own, that she had a job and a life and things to take care of. But the empty wine bottle on the counter from the night before told her differently, and instead she nodded, with a whispered, "Okay."


	3. Alive and Fighting

The bag on the bed was half-packed, clothes strewn around as she searched for the comfiest in her closet. Her mum had left to take Tony for ice cream while Rose got her things together, promising to bring back her favorite hot fudge sundae. Rose ran a hand through her dirty blonde hair, trying to brush it without having to dig out her comb. She'd put on pants now, proper ones, and the huge grey cardigan she wore had been the Doctor's. It held the same bright saltwater smell in its fibers as his jacket.

She'd been able to go at least an hour without crying so far that day, so her first day without him in two years seemed to be going fairly well. She found she'd woken at two, and couldn't remember sleeping so late since she was a teenager. Torchwood had been leaving messages all day, so Rose finally called them back and told Ianto she would be gone for a week or two. They'd been almost too understanding. She didn't like the way they were tiptoeing around her like she was made of glass. She'd lost the Doctor before, and yes, she'd had a breakdown both times, but this was different. It hadn't hit her yet.

Rose used both hands to empty out her sweatpants drawer, and another for her casual shirts. When she got to the sock drawer, she noticed something at the bottom. It was a piece of paper and an envelope. Gingerly she picked it all up, as if it might turn to dust any second. Her heart thumped painfully when she recognized the Doctor's writing.

'_Happy birthday to my Rose!_' it read in his bold cheerful scrawl. She wrinkled her brow despite the incredible increase in heart rate. Her birthday wasn't for two months. '_I know if you find this too soon, it'll be really, really, really early but I had to plan ahead of time, and I'm not a very patient human time lord. Besides, you already know all the good hiding places in the flat, and there aren't that many. But, I've done the math and if you use this drawer regularly and start from the left (and I keep it supplied right) you should get to your gift within two to three days of the big one! Which is, y'know, not too bad if I do say so myself. If you find it ahead of time, just don't open it and pretend you never saw it, okay?_'

Rose couldn't help but choke a laugh, raising the back of her hand to her face to quell the emotion threatening to take over.

'_Right, well, I hear your car so I should wrap this up. I got you this because I know that, even though living with you is fantastic and exciting and all that, we both need a real adventure. You never talk about it, but it's taking you a while to get used to this whole way of life, and used to me, and not hate the other me anymore. But, you have to know I love you, and I'm so glad he gave you to me instead of keeping you to himself. I don't say it very often because you look like you almost want to slap me whenever I do, but I really, really do need you with me. You're fantastic, and I couldn't bear to live like this, like a __human__, (note the amused disgust) without you making every day an adventure. So, thank you. And that was really cheesy, I know, leave me alone._

_The__ - Your Doctor._

_(Also very cheesy, forgive me.)_

_PS. I know you say you hate celebrating your birthday and making a big deal out of it, but I know you actually love it. So prepare yourself, Rose Tyler, for one hell of a night. Laser-tag and alcohol included. But not mixed. That could get dangerous.'_

There was one more sentence on the back. '_PPS. And also a clown and one donkey. Or two. Just … be prepared for anything, really._'

Rose fell to the bed, gripping the note tightly in shaking fingers. She stared at it for what seemed ages. When the script began to swim together with the tears that pricked her eyes, she folded the paper in halves and put it in her pocket. The envelope was bulky with stapled pages, and weighted in her hands. She couldn't decide whether to open it, or to wait the two months. She wondered if his death nulled any waiting periods, and then the guilt rose again like bile.

At once she tore the top off, and shook the contents out into her lap. Tickets. Loads of tickets. Tickets to South America; for cave-diving, for horseback riding, for tours, for safaris, for helicopters and trains, for skydiving, for everything there was possible to do, it seemed. She glanced through them in amazement. Pairs of everything. Pairs.

Her head began pounding again. This time it wasn't a hangover, just more frustration and rage and grief. It took all the self-control she had to pile the thick papers neatly back into the envelope and tuck them into the drawer again. She grabbed the Doctor's blue suit jacket off the vanity again and threw it on, ignoring the way his cardigan bunched up underneath. Then she marched out of the apartment, head too full of anger and vengeance and madness to leave a note or lock the door, and down to her car. She drove with fury to Torchwood.

xxx

She didn't know how she managed to get all the way to the building, and couldn't even remember the drive, but the frustration was still pent up inside of her, and she knew if she didn't do it now, she'd sink into her bland lifestyle again and never get out. She threw the door open to the touristy-looking shack, and Ianto jumped when he saw her.

"Rose! What's going on? I thought you weren't coming in for a–"

"Let me through, Ianto," she commanded, striding towards the door. He buzzed her in and she entered without breaking stride. They all looked up.

"Rose?" murmured Gwen.

"I need you to send me after him, Tosh," said Rose evenly, almost an order. "I don't care if you think it's impossible, I need to go after him."

Toshiko looked round as if for an excuse. "It _is_ impossible, Rose, I can't do that. It'd massacre you."

Rose roared in frustration. "There must be something I can do! I have to go! What if he's not dead, only he can't get back? He said so himself, that he was lowering the capacity so it'd keep the extraterrestrial life out, and it would only send him with them! He said that!"

"Rose, just come here," Gwen told her softly, beckoning with her arms open.

"No!" shouted Rose. "I'm done with the crying, and the being soft, and the sitting around waiting for nothing! I'm a Torchwood combatant, goddamn it, I've been trained to fight! I'm not a weak little girl anymore!"

"No one said-" started Gwen.

"I found a way to him last time! Who's to say I can't again? I need to _do_ something, Gwen! There has to be some way!"

"The walls were weak last time, filled with cracks," Tosh interrupted in her calm, solid manner. "You used technology we no longer have access to. You couldn't even take the easy way if we did have the technology, because that wormhole is the only way in."

"There has to be something!" protested Rose. "Something to protect me, or make me stronger, or something! I have to know. I have to know if he's still alive-"

"I won't let you do it!" Tosh suddenly burst through her histrionic speech. "If there's any chance that you won't make it through, Rose, I can't, in good conscience, let you do it!"

The base was quiet. Rose looked at them all anticipatorily for a moment, halfheartedly expecting someone to pipe up, 'Wait, we do have that suit of armor that would protect her,' or 'Here's a big red button, we forgot it would transport her in a second!' But no one did.

Rose walked through them. "Fine." She pulled the dark, saltwater-woven jacket around her tighter and looked down, away from the judging and concerned eyes. "I'm going to go look through the alien technology. Maybe there's something there that can help."

Not one of them stopped her.

xxx

Ground. There was so much of it, rough ground digging into him everywhere. Ground that was hard, like concrete, but jagged and piled, like destroyed concrete. It was the only thing he could feel, cold stone seeping through the material of his clothes. No air. He beat his chest once, hard, knocking wind back into his lungs, coughing the astral residue and interstellar particles that had replaced it. Every inch of him hurt, felt like something was tearing him apart from the inside. But he was alive. His heart was beating, which was more than he'd expected.

"Blimey, one heart," the Doctor choked. How did humans put up with it? He felt so weak, all the time.

He dragged himself over the gravelly concrete until he'd manipulated his gangly, sore limbs into a sitting position. It was dark outside, unlike the bright afternoon he'd just been in. He felt like he'd been ripped across time for hours.

"Rose!" he said suddenly, looking up expectantly. He wanted her to be all right. He hoped with every fiber of his being that she'd survived. If she'd been taken too … well, he was half time lord. Feeling half-dead, he knew his lineage was the only reason he'd survived the wormhole. A human … a human never would have made it. Ever.

He looked up, blinking in the moonlight. There was no way he'd make it back alive. The wormhole had to be dead by now, the rift flux that fueled it having passed. But he had to try, for Rose.

Vaguely he wondered which universe he'd been thrown into, which planet he'd landed on. Which country he was in? He pulled out his penlight – a nerdy thing to carry, Rose had told him, but it made a decent surrogate for the familiar comfort of his screwdriver in hand – and beamed it around him. All he saw was rough, uneven ground, a mess of rubble and debris. The remains of some kind of building. Charred from explosives.

Suddenly there was a rush of familiarity as the Doctor found the charred fragments of posters and hangings from Ianto's front entrance, and he did a bit of digging to uncover the door to the base.

"So this is Torchwood," he murmured, voice still rough from travel. The Torchwood of this planet.

The Doctor looked up, vision clearing substantially as he recognized the street signs and buildings around him. He was kneeling in the ruins of the Millennium Centre. "Oh, very good. Earth! Cardiff, no less!" he announced to himself as he stood and dusted his pants, ignoring the ache that coursed through his limbs. What had happened to Jack Harkness? Obviously he hadn't died, couldn't. But where was he now that he had nowhere to host his team? And what of his team? The Doctor knew they wouldn't be the same people he knew, but he couldn't help but hope they were alive and safe somewhere.

He needed a detector. A timey-wimey detector.

The Doctor began to gather the necessary pieces from the wreckage.


	4. Soul of the Bad Wolf

Two hours, and a trip to a nearby pawn shop, later, the Doctor had a charred metal box slung around his neck on a serrated leather strap. He'd plugged a receiver to the top, and though it was by far the silliest-looking timey-wimey detector he'd ever put together, it was fully functional.

"Oh yes," he grinned to himself as the parts started whirring and producing little _ding_s when he faced his landing spot. Building things like this had always kept him distracted, though usually he hadn't had to be so creative because of the sonic screwdriver. Now that it was finished, he couldn't help but wonder which dimension he'd landed in. Pete's world and their original world had strong past links, it was true, but he couldn't get his hopes up. Because if he got his hopes up, he might start thinking that he could find Jack Harkness, and maybe even the real Doctor – both of whom would only exist in Rose's world – and the TARDIS, and build another screwdriver using the original, and at least retain some of his other life before he got back home.

Too much wishful thinking.

Before anything, he had to find this world's Torchwood; his greatest hope of making it back to Rose.

xxx

The creature on the other side of the glass was hazy and unclear. It seemed to be almost an echo of something very tall, very slender. An ambiguously shaped cloud of silvery particles, reflecting the light separately like chromatophores in fish, all strung together with some kind of ionic bond, but not really there. The Doctor had come up with the fish thing the second he'd seen it, and it had seemed to bring them closer to figuring out what the creature was. For now, Rose had affectionately dubbed him Chromaghost. She'd felt some kind of bond with him, though the others just considered him another alien that gave them the heebie-jeebies, at most. There was only one of him that they knew of. He stood dead center in the cell, and seemed to be looking towards Rose, right through her. But he didn't move. He hadn't moved since his capture, when he'd supposedly just stood there and looked on as Gwen temporarily suspended him. "The most peaceful guest we've had in ages," she'd murmured in a strange tone when she'd brought him back.

Rose watched him, pressed against the glass and tried to talk to him as usual. He only shimmered when she shifted, however, and didn't seem to respond, except for a slightly yellower glow whenever she got closer. That was normal, though. She'd seen the tint earlier, but the Doctor had told her not to be daft, it was the dim lighting, and gone on pressing buttons on whatever machine he held. She'd heard the vaguest whispers hanging around him too, but no one else had mentioned them and she didn't want to sound mad. She couldn't understand the undertones anyway, they were too quiet. When she'd brought it to Gwen, Rose had been told the pipes were giving them trouble and to ignore it.

She wasn't so sure now. She couldn't tell if it was still the lighting, but he seemed to radiate almost golden energy now. And the hissing noises were definitely words, even if she still couldn't understand. No pipe was ever that articulate.

It moved.

She was sure of it.

It had just turned the slightest bit, and she felt some kind of presence boring into her. Not just looking past anymore. It had grabbed her gaze and wasn't letting go.

Rose found herself captured, and completely unafraid, as the Chromaghost glided gently, slowly, assuredly towards her.

"H-how are you doing that?" she stuttered, taking one involuntary step forward.

More whispers. So strong now, filling her head, but still so crowded she couldn't hear them properly. The creature was almost touching the glass now, floating in front of her. The glass fogged … no, frosted … and Rose folded her arms around herself to keep from shivering. She still found herself wholly fearless, outlandishly fearless, as she looked into its eyes. She could see them, glinting from beyond, far beyond what was in front of her.

"What are you?" she murmured to it, pressing her hand against the glass.

_Salvation_, the one whisper came clearly, sharply, and the iridescent entity moved through the glass like it was air and absorbed her.

xxx

Tosh chewed her pen. She was too overworked, too jittery for this. She could barely think, let alone come up with any solution to get the Doctor back. And they needed the Doctor. He filled a void in the group that the crew hadn't even known was there. Rose talked sometimes about a man named Jack, a captain, but they took it as other-dimension nonsense and smiled and nodded through it.

The team at Torchwood had thought Rose was good – a time-traveler, someone who'd actually _seen_ the distant stars and populations and devices they pored over and protected Earth from – but then she'd brought in the Doctor. The man she'd talked about for ages and ages – well, kind of – who could help in ways they'd never imagined, because they never thought they'd have someone like him. They'd managed before, but Tosh couldn't imagine the survival of the Institute without him now. Sure, she was the one _technically_ in charge, of the paperwork, anyway, but everyone knew that the 'outside consultant' was the one to turn to.

Ianto suddenly leaned over her with her flower-patterned mug and she jumped sharply. "Whoa, easy, just the afternoon brew," he told her, holding up his hands in surrender. "I think you should go home for a bit. You've been here since three."

"I'm fine," she told him, even though she wasn't, and sipped at her umpteenth cup of coffee. Their resident medic, Owen Harper, overheard and nodded, making her ears and face go red on top of everything.

"Ianto's right, Toshy, you're going to make yourself sick carrying on like that," he told her, cracking a cheeky, comforting smile that made her stomach flip despite everything. "You should go take a nap at least. We can hold down the fort."

"I'm fine, Owen," she said lightly, standing to look at the rift pillar in the middle of the base again. There still seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary with it, except that it had just swallowed their most valuable player.

"Seriously, Tosh, you look terrible," he continued. She turned to him with a mockingly sweet look on her face.

"You know just how to talk to women, don't you?" she said forcefully.

Owen's jaw suddenly dropped, and he stared at her. "Holy shit…" he muttered.

"What? My hair?" Tosh asked sarcastically, knowing he was joking and lifting a hand to her head.

"No, Tosh-" Ianto murmured from the landing above her. He was looking past her, and she realized that Owen was as well. She turned quickly.

"Oh my God," she gasped.

Rose was there. She seemed to be almost floating, shining white like a cloud as she stepped smoothly towards them. Her feet barely grazed the ground. The dark blonde hair that had been in a messy bun that morning floated around her shoulders, and her eyes flamed, looking at nothing.

"Rose – what happened?" Tosh whispered, reaching out towards her. Owen grabbed her arm.

"Don't touch her-!" he warned. Rose inclined her head towards him. She looked positively beatific, in the most terrifying way possible. Tosh found tears coming to her eyes, and she had no idea why.

"Who are you?" asked Ianto boldly, asking what the others couldn't. As the haunted Rose turned slowly towards him, Tosh backed into Owen.

"Call Gwen," she told him quietly. "Get her back here. Now."

"I am everything," Rose said, and it wasn't Rose. It was a resonant voice filled with solemn majesty that penetrated Tosh and engaged every sense. She couldn't look away. "I am filled with a being of everything that is. I can see what I never could. I can see this world, and this universe, and all universes. I can see everything that will ever come to pass."

"Who are you?" Ianto demanded again. Rose's mouth opened and closed, as if the question was too huge for her to answer.

"I am the bad wolf," she finally said, words ringing across ages.

Everything was silent. Suddenly the bad wolf Rose moved to the tower, the rift-generator, and placed a hand to it. Her eyes closed.

"Where is my Doctor?" she asked in that haunting tone, and then her brilliant white eyes opened again, and stared into Tosh's being. It terrified her, and fascinated her. "I must go to him. You must bring me to him."

"I-I can't," insisted Tosh. "Rose, I can't–"

"The girl will die," the bad wolf said. "She will die if you don't send her. My head…"

She pressed a hand to her forehead for a moment, and the room seemed to hold its breath. When the being that was not Rose looked up again, she was crying.

"It hurts. It hurts her, and I will die. There is too much of me for her. We must have the Doctor." As the presence spoke, she bared her teeth in pain, and stared into nothing again.

"What will you do with him?" asked Ianto waveringly. "What do you need him for?"

"He will fix me," murmured the bad wolf, then gripped her head again. "Please…! I must go now! I am dying…"

"I can't!" Tosh breathed hysterically. "I've never … I can't! It would kill her!"

"I am dying," whispered Rose, and it was Rose for a moment. Tosh gripped her hair in her fingers.

"What did you do to her?" she shouted angrily. "What have you done to Rose?"

"She beckoned me in," droned the bad wolf. "She asked for me. I am helping her. I am her salvation."

Tosh froze. Owen shifted behind her. "Send her, Toshiko," he told her. "Send her. I have a feeling … I think this thing will keep her alive."

She still couldn't move, and the bad wolf kept crying, talking to her in words she couldn't understand, in that horrible, echoing voice. Finally it was too much. Tosh nodded, holding a hand to her face.

"I'll send you to him," she conceded.


	5. The Doctor Wasn't There

**a/n:** really short chapter this time, sorry :P i just felt like it was the end.

The man lying in his bed still had that air of defeat hanging around him. The temperament was what had drawn Jack to him, feeling like he could help him, could fix him. Could make him more open, like … like he'd done Ianto.

But it hadn't worked, on either of them. Jack didn't feel any less empty, and the gentleman who twisted his clean sheets in his hand was no better for having known him. For the last few months Jack had been inviting the young man upstairs from where he sat at the bar, but, hard as he try, he couldn't make either of them feel anything. He hated that feeling more than anything else. The feeling of disappointment, of dismissal.

He'd known it before. That's why it was easier to hand Tomas his denims, mention the lovely evening and mean it, and offer him a last glass of rum and coke. His guest shook his head.

"You really should get your place fixed up, you know." Tomas looked up around him, shaking back longish blonde hair to look at the shabby curtains, the peeling wallpaper and dingy everything. His deep Scottish accent almost made Jack want him again, the softened way it rolled off his tongue like … well, other things.

"It's not my place," Jack told him for the tenth time, shaking off the memory in favor of a glance at the same abandoned-hotel-looking areas. It _was_ an abandoned hotel. But it was better than nothing. Especially a jail cell. "I'm holding it for a friend." He'd tried to joke several times like this, always kicking himself after. For some reason his normally witty banter had been failing him of late, just leaving him with cheesy dad-humor.

"Thanks for the drinks," the man said, relapsing to the introversive tone he'd used before he'd been taken to Jack Harkness' bed. They both knew it would be the last time he was up here.

"Thanks for the company," Jack inclined his head and saw him to the door. When Tomas left he took the awkward air with him, leaving only the heady aftertaste of sweat and compunction and guilt to distract Jack. Before he let himself get all think-y, though, he pulled on slacks and a tee shirt and went to work. He dropped to the moth-eaten chair at the table and opened his Torchwood-programmed laptop, running a hand through his damp, rough hair.

Nothing. No recorded alien activity anywhere in Cardiff, even with a boosted signal from his vortex manipulator. How the hell was he supposed to do his job if no one was reporting anything? He needed Tosh. But she was gone. He needed Owen, and Ianto. He needed Gwen. The only one he had left, and she wanted nothing to do with him or Torchwood. Since the baby.

He'd lost his team all over again. How the hell did this keep happening? Was he cursed? Condemned to keep spending these pointlessly violent lives over and over, lose everything he built in pointlessly violent ways, never get a decent night's sleep, all because he couldn't die? Why the fuck couldn't he die?

Jack slammed the laptop shut again and shoved away from the table. He stood up to pour himself another scotch on the rocks, when he noticed a figure in the doorway from the corner of his eye.

"Back so soon?" he asked, expecting the rolling Scottish reply.

"Well, it has been a while, but no need to be all sarcastic," came the wrong voice. Jack dropped the bottle to the table and spun towards the man, not believing his eyes. They stared at each other for a moment, the tall, reedy man swathed in brown pinstripes leaning against the frame and giving him that narcissistic, raised-brow look over his glasses. Some kind of ridiculous iron case was slung against his chest, but Jack barely gave it a glance. It wasn't the strangest thing he'd seen this man carry around.

"Doctor," Jack said, more a statement than a greeting.

"Captain," came the response, the title made almost an admonishment.

"What, uh-" Jack swallowed. Usually the Doctor caught him at a better time than the bitter self-loathing period following sex. "How did you find me?"

The Doctor straightened, entering the room with the judgmental look-around Jack had come to expect with the place. "You know, for someone who doesn't seem to want to be found, you do use that vortex manipulator an _awful_ lot. This place is teeming with all kinds of energy, like a psychosomatic maelstrom, did you know that?"

"What are you doing here, Doctor?" asked Jack, trying again. "Where's Donna?"

"I should have you know," the man straightened his thick-rimmed glasses and looked back at Jack over the tops. "Donna's not with me. And I'm not the Doctor."

Jack's mouth fell open. Quicker than a flash, he'd thrown himself against the desk and reached into the top drawer. His hands were steady as he drew out and pointed his powerful handgun towards the stranger's face.

"What the hell are you, then?" he shouted. "Why did you take his form?"

The man who was not the Doctor sighed and flipped away his head. "Oh, not with the bloody guns again! Put it away, would you?" Jack failed to obey. The guy glared at him and ran his hands through his hair. "Okay, I am the Doctor. Sort of. You know. Doctor-Donna? Half time lord, half human?"

"You're the Doctor-Donna?" squinted Jack, lowering the weapon slightly. "What are you doing here? How do I know I can trust you?"

"Well, it's not like I carry bananas on me or anything to prove it…" muttered the Doctor, still staring at the gun. "I'd really, really appreciate it if you put that down, Jack."

Jack did so unwillingly, and the loss of the comforting weight in his hand made him obviously more wary. The Doctor-Donna ginned suddenly, triumphantly, turning his head. "Thanks. It's good to see you again. You're looking well."

"You're looking older," Jack told him honestly.

"Oi!" He looked offended. "It's hard, this human stuff, I'm getting used to it. Rose bought me moisturizer the other day, can you imagine? Said I was turning into a wrinkly old man."

"I'll never have that problem, I guess."

"Yeah, lucky bastard."

The men looked at each other for a minute. Jack wondered how they were managing such banter given the circumstances, and the Doctor wondered what kind of processor the laptop behind him was running on. Jack gave a belated chuckle and offered the other a drink, which was declined. A proposition for a seat on the beaten up couch, however, was gladly accepted.

The Doctor groaned as he fell into the loveseat. He poked at a spring that stuck out beside him. Jack waited for him to say something about the questionable temporary home, but he didn't; instead opting to complain animatedly about the crick in his neck from the vortex-speed hypervelocity at which he was thrust through the theoretical temporal-spacial barrier between cosmoses. Jack nodded and smiled and pretended to know what he was talking about.

"Why are you here?" he asked, watching as the Doctor removed the strange metal thing from his neck and dropped it beside him, along with his scuffed and dirty leather jacket. Jack pulled the chair from the desk.

"It was an accident. I just told you," he said, tone too normal. "There was a rift burst at Torchwood and I barely caught it in time to save everyone. It grabbed me along with the other things, but it obviously didn't know where to shove me and stuck me in the only other universe I've ever been. Here."

"Okay, but," Jack nodded, "why _here_? Why did you find _me_?"

"Well, you're Torchwood, aren't you?"

Jack laughed humorlessly. "Did you notice the living arrangements? The destroyed base? The hiding, the onslaught of extraterrestrials and lack of people I care about? There's no Torchwood. Not anymore."

"What?" The Doctor leaned his elbows on his knees, brow creased. "Why, what happened?"

Jack sighed and shook his head. "What never happens. The Doctor wasn't there to save us in the end."

xxx

Rose landed, hard, and the last breath she'd taken rushed from her in one solid flow. Her face and clothes were damp with sweat, every centimeter of her felt like something was driving spikes in, and she had no idea where the hell she was.

The second she was able to grasp at breath, she let out a loud, long groan of agony and clawed at her chest. That was the last thing she remembered.


	6. Dying

There was white everywhere. Blinding white that fought against her until she couldn't keep her eyes open and was forced back into darkness. There were people talking, she thought. They might not have been people. There wasn't enough energy in her to tell. She was so tired. Everything hurt.

Needles. Excruciating pain. Blacking out. White. Black again.

Jumbled, mindless thoughts rammed at her and attacked her in every moment she was aware of herself. The frustration of these psychotically inane observations mingled with the exploding ache she felt in every cell of her. Hopelessness. There was something important that she had to do, she knew it. Something folded behind everything else and she couldn't make it out half the time no matter how hard she tried.

Every time she felt herself reach consciousness she knew she was screaming in agony. There was just so much of it. She knew she was struggling and fighting and could hear panicked voices. White. Then something pushed her back down, morphine, maybe, and she was trapped in her mind with her own frivolous thoughts again. Dark.

Sometimes there was one voice in the shadows, and she'd remember.

She'd never see the Doctor again.

She'd slip away without ever having found him.

xxx

"I am sorry," the Doctor said bleakly. What else could he say? What else did he ever say? "I am so, so sorry, Jack. This wasn't meant to happen, any of it. I didn't even know."

"How could you have?" asked Jack as he paced, seemingly aiming to drink himself into a coma. "It's not you, is it? You were in another dimension. You couldn't have stopped it."

The Doctor nodded, not feeling the same antagonism he'd had in the beginning when people, especially Rose, had separated him from the 'real' Doctor. "I can't believe he wasn't here," he murmured as he rubbed his eyes, and they both knew who he referred to. "And they all died? All of them?"

"Not at the same time." Jack swallowed the antipathy he couldn't help but feel. This man had everything he'd lost. "We lost Tosh and Owen a while before. And then … Ianto. Gwen and I are the only ones left."

"Gwen's alive?" the Doctor looked up, hopeful. "She made it?"

"Yeah," said the captain with a little smile. "Yeah, but she's not with Torchwood anymore. She had a baby."

"Did she?" the Doctor raised his eyebrows, mouth turning up in wonderment. "With who?"

"Who? Rhys of course. It's not mine, if that's what you're asking."

"Oh, is he still alive, too?" the Doctor said excitedly with a bigger grin. "Oh, good for Gwen. That's really great."

"Of course he is," Jack's brow wrinkled. "In your universe … is he-" He shook his head suddenly. "Never mind. I don't want to know. Just … tell me what you need to get back."

xxx

A few months after her dad had taken them home for the first time in the new universe, a few days after Rose thought she was getting normal again, a few hours after she'd realized there was hope in Torchwood, a few minutes after a song on the radio reminded her of travelling in the TARDIS, and a few seconds after she realized she was, for the most part, okay with it, she'd been in a traffic collision.

The term sounded so trivial and distant compared to the ordeal that followed.

She recognized the feeling she'd had while slipping in and out of consciousness in the ambulance. The uselessness, the futility of everything. The realization that she'd die before ever having found the Doctor again.

It was the worst thing she'd ever felt. And she'd felt it more than once.

xxx

With quick precision that could only come from nine hundred years of building exceptionally ingenious devices and working with one of the more mysterious time machines in the universe, the Doctor carefully extricated the pale fruit from its bright yellow peel.

"Why bananas?" Jack asked, hanging over the table he'd cleared for workspace.

"Traveling through that wormhole caused a dangerously high potassium deficiency in my system," explained the Doctor as he took a mouthful. "I'm starting to feel the effects. I need the bananas."

"You made them sound so important," Jack noted, picking up the bunch he'd just brought back from the shop.

"They are! You don't want me to suffer fatigue, acne and dry skin, do you? Besides, bananas are good." The Doctor grabbed the fruit back and put them on the table near the instruments he'd managed to salvage from the wreck of Torchwood. With them he should, hopefully, be able to build a variation of the past dimension hoppers. Being the clever half-time-lord he was, he'd even managed to figure out a design that wouldn't rip through the wall, instead forcing the energy to focus on and use the existing wormhole as a sort of door. There were only two problems: one was that it would only work once, one way, because it would fold the wormhole permanently after him. He'd closed it, yes, but it was still safely accessible with the right technology. This wasn't so huge, since when he got home, he wouldn't need to come back. The other problem was that the hopper required astatine, which only occurred when heavier elements like uranium decayed, and happened to be one of the rarest matters on earth.

The Doctor worked at it for days as Jack played domestic, making the food and tidying up the mess of alien tech and supplying the alcohol. Sometimes he borrowed the improvised timey-wimey detector and left for a few hours to play extraterrestrial superhero, so he wouldn't go mad.

"I died four times today," he announced one night, slightly adversely as he came in, dropping the box by the door.

"You should really be more careful, Jack," the Doctor told him as he soldered two pieces together. "Eventually you're going to start coming back differently. From what you tell me, you already fed a _lot_ of your lives to that creature you talked about."

"Yeah, but that's infinite," Jack said lightly, pulling an ale out of his cooler. The abandoned fridge didn't work. "I have infinite lives, right? You said that bad wolf thing pulled my existence out of all other universes to make me immortal. And there are infinite universes."

"It _seems _infinite, Jack," the Doctor said distractedly. "The immortality is superficial and it's got loopholes. Now that you can only exist in this dimension, you're not generating any other branches of yourself into new ones as they're created. You _are_ dying, despite how many times it takes to get there. And whenever you die, you'll come back a few seconds older and eventually you'll start to look and feel it."

He felt Jack's eyes trained on him and turned the chair slightly to face him.

"I'm dying…?" asked Jack breathlessly.

"You're dying. We're all dying, regardless of what we think."

"And you're dying?"

"Of course I am. I'm part human."

Jack closed his eyes and shook his head. "Sorry, I forgot. I meant … is the other Doctor dying?"

The Doctor was silent for a moment, mouth twitching slightly. "Yes," he answered finally. "Yes, he's dying. Well, to be precise, he could die at any time despite the regeneration. A time lord used to be able to regenerate only so many times. Now, however, it's kind of a crap shoot. Anything could happen. Regenerations go badly, you die too quickly, you die wrong…"

"You die wrong?"

"Well, some things you can't come back from. If your system's inhibited by drugs or something," the Doctor explained. "Or if too much happened at once. The point is there used to be a limit, when the Time Lord Society had a play in it. Twelve. Twelve regenerations, that's your lot. Now that the only remaining link is in the TARDIS, however, and the only remaining time lord is _in_ the TARDIS, who knows?"

"So … you used to know when you'd die for good." Jack moved his laptop from the counter so he could pull out a tin of leftovers. "Now you have no idea?"

"No idea. He might have two. He might have two hundred. I knew one of my kind – you wouldn't be able to pronounce her name – that the Society felt worthy to bypass the twelve-rule. I think it was an experiment, actually. They let her regenerate twenty-six times." The Doctor paused, turning back to his work. "It might have been more, had she chosen."

"Chosen?" asked Jack.

"She decided not to regenerate a twenty-seventh time. Felt she'd lived long enough. So she died."

Jack moved to sit at the table opposite him. The Doctor was keying in numbers to a garage-door opener that was splayed in front of him. A teleportation key number.

"Would you ever choose not to regenerate?" he asked.

"There's always something to live for, Jack," the Doctor told him after a moment. Six, three, five, seven, zero, nine. "Always another person to show the universe. Always another planet to save. She may not have thought like that, but I do. _He_ does."

Jack smiled grimly. "So you're saying I shouldn't choose to die as long as there are people to look after."

"I'm saying you should be more careful," The Doctor corrected. "One day you'll be out of life, and you might wish you weren't. You may need more to feed something else, maybe to keep it alive instead of killing it."

"That won't happen," the other scoffed. "I'll be glad when it's all done."

The Doctor looked over his glasses at him. "Don't be so sure, Jack," he murmured, thinking only of the Face of Boe, but he didn't let on that he knew any more than he should. He turned his eyes back down to the door opener, and Jack had a feeling the conversation was over.

xxx

The spotless bathroom mirror glinted in the bright, surgically clean white of the washroom. The woman reflected in it straightened her deep blue scrubs, wishing she had a physician's coat to put over them. For now she'd have to settle with working as head nurse, though. With a deep breath she pinned on her metal tag and it shone white. _Hiromi Sato_, it flashed at her cheerily. _Unit Coordinator_.

It was a better title than 'secretary', to be sure. Her last job was at the local paper, taking calls for a man who did nothing but ask for coffee and grab her ass. Hiromi had given up the reporter dream too easily, her best-selling mother insisted, even though she'd only taken a few online courses for it. She'd schooled to be medical staff, not a writer.

Today, a Thursday, was her first day back at work. She hated Thursdays. It was her luck to be starting on a Thursday. It'd be a miracle if she still had her job at the end of her shift.

The beeping of her watch indicated it was time to go back to work, so she clicked it off and finished washing her hands before setting off. The commotion of the ER attacked her as she left the staff area to sign back in.

"Romi," a man called her, one of the nurses beneath her, and she nodded.

"Yeah, what is it?"

"If you're logged in, we've got a girl who needs taking care of. She's got some kind of bug really bad, like the flu, but…"

Hiromi's brow creased. "Get one of the others to take her. Get Sasha. I've loads of paperwork to do, first day back."

"Sasha's busy," he said urgently. "They're all busy. We've had people being brought in left and right, all sorts of stuff. Nigel said you were free, and this girl's dying. She needs constant supervision."

Hiromi sighed. "All right. I'll go." She took the patient's clipboard from him and looked at it. Most of it was blank. "Is this a jo–?"

The practitioner was already gone. She shook her head frustratedly. She'd have to fill it in herself, even though it was against protocol to even admit someone missing so much information. At least a name was there, though. Rose Tyler.


	7. A Telephone Number

There was horrendous shouting and groaning and sobbing coming from the hall Hiromi turned into. It sounded like someone was being tortured. It turned out the noise was coming from the very room she headed for, and she quickened her pace. A blonde girl was strapped to the bed by her hands and feet, and writhed against the bonds. Sweat poured off her and her skin was raw red. The words she screamed were in some foreign language.

"Okay, okay!" Hiromi said loudly, trying to cover her own distress as she rushed to the bedside. She shouldn't have even been there. "Has anyone told you what's wrong with her?" She turned to the anesthesiologist, who was trying to take her blood pressure, also red-faced and haggard.

"They don't know. They've just told me to keep her drugged and out of pain," the man said frantically. "There's just too much going on right now, I don't know. She's being so loud, she's almost the only one in a private room."

He gave her the sheet with the proper dosage listed on it and hurried to the next patient, closing the door behind him. Hiromi looked over the charts on her bed, filled with the inconclusive tests already run on the girl.

"Rose?" she asked gently against the shouting. "Rose Tyler? That's you, isn't it?" The noise rose in volume. Hiromi heard 'the doctor' and leapt at it. "The doctors are busy, but my name is Hiromi. I'm going to try and figure out what's wrong with you, okay?"

For a few minutes she tried to ignore the yelling, agitatedly taking more tests and matching them against the old results. She drew blood and changed the dressings on her wounds, which covered her body like welts, like her skin had been scraped clean off in some places. She tried to be professional. Tried to help.

"I'm going to sit you up now and take some more readings, all right?"

Rose grimaced and gripped the bed sheets in blue fingers, still trying to thrash as she whimpered and moaned. Hiromi bit her lip. She couldn't anesthetize yet, it would interfere with the tests.

"_Bad wolf_!" the girl took a few heaving breaths. "_Bad wolf, bad wolf, bad wolf_…!"

She went limp with a shudder. The heart monitor began to slow its beeping.

"No!" Hiromi shouted as Rose Tyler fell against the bed, face screwed up in pain. "Stay with me, Rose. Come on."

She went to pull open the cabinet beside the bed, reaching for the adrenaline, when she heard a sighing breath. Terrified to look but knowing she had to, she peeked back. The girl's eyes were wide open and glowed, an unearthly white glow, staring straight forward at nothing. Hiromi leapt back in shock, stumbling over a tray and stand.

"Let me out," the girl said wispily. She suddenly looked perfect, too disturbingly perfect, and the sweat and pain and flush seemed to have completely disappeared. Her skin glowed almost golden against the blue sheets. "I'm not … strong enough. You have to let me go."

"What are you?" whispered Hiromi from where she pressed against the wall. "What's happened to you?"

"I breathed in the vortex," the girl murmured. "She looked and she saw and she asked. I've come so far. I must have the Doctor."

"Th-the doctors are all busy," Hiromi stuttered. "Is this a trick?"

"I am only what is," the being whispered. "There is no deceit. Let me go. I must find him."

"You have to stay," said Hiromi, finding a bit of her voice. "You're very sick, we need to…"

"Once I am gone, there will only be Rose Tyler. She will be made whole. She will heal." The being sucked in a breath, and then closed her eyes against some invisible pain. "I absorbed what I could of the hole in time and space, and am weakened. Her body was harmed as little as possible. Though I infect her now, I have spared her and saved her. In return, you must find the Doctor so he can do the same for me."

"I – I can't, there are no doctors…"

"Please," the thing begged in a heartbreaking tone, tears beginning to run down its face into the pillow. "I am dying. I need my Doctor. I infect her. If I pass, she will pass. If I am saved, she is saved."

"What are you?" she breathed again, dreading the answer.

"We are one. We are bad wolf. Help us."

"I…" Hiromi fell against the door in distress and twisted the knob. "I'm sorry!"

The hallway was empty. She collapsed against an uninhabited bed and held a hand to her face, beginning to cry for reasons she didn't understand. That voice filled her head and wouldn't let go. The eyes. She was half-convinced she'd imagined it, or was at home dreaming right now, but … she knew she wasn't. And whatever that thing was, it was dying in there. She was a certified medic, for God's sake. She was here to help. She had to help.

It took her a moment to compose herself, but Hiromi managed to force herself back into the room. Rose Tyler was lying on the bed, completely still, eyes closed. She wasn't breathing. Hiromi put a hand to her mouth and froze.

Suddenly the haunting eyes opened again and turned towards Hiromi pleadingly. Her breath caught in her throat as it seemed to … to know her. "Please," it whispered.

"How?" she asked desperately, hands clenching and unclenching. "How do I help you?"

"Doctor…"

"Where's this 'Doctor' then? Do you want me to call him?"

The thing fell into some kind of trance again. Hiromi waited with bated breath, and realized, with a mouth barely moving, it was whispering something almost inaudibly. Numbers. She jumped towards the admission form and flipped it over, managing to catch the number on the back. _07700 90461._

xxx

"Amy!" the Doctor called from his position under the ship's console. "Amy, get that, would you?"

The ringing of the phone still echoed around the room, and he sighed, lifting his welding goggles. "Amy! I'm kind of busy right now! I'm fusing things!"

"Sorry!" said Amy a minute later as she slid into the console room. "Sorry, I was just – um – with Rory. I'm getting it."

"Oh, that's disgusting! Stop doing that in my TARDIS!" shouted the Doctor as the alert stopped. He went back to trying to fix the machine, soothing the groans with a pat. "Hang on, I'm almost done," he muttered affectionately. He barely heard Amy answer the phone.

"If it's Spain again, tell them I'm not interested," he told her. "I've already got a whole statue made of it near the pool, I don't need any more."

"Doctor," Amy murmured in her low Scottish accent.

"Seriously, if I have to take one more bit of…"

"No, Doctor, it's … a hospital. In Cardiff. Ringing about some glowing woman, I don't know, she's speaking rather fast…"

"Glowing woman?" the Doctor slid out from the open panel and stood. "Sounds interesting. But I thought I blocked hospital numbers, I don't like talking to hospitals."

"She's … she's talking." The intense look on Amy's face, confused and stunned and shaken, made him pause. "The ... the glowing woman, I mean."

"What's she saying?" he asked slowly, leaning in.

"Something about … she's dying. And she needs your help."

There was an unsettling, deep, anticipatory silence as he watched her face change, terror wreaking her features. The Doctor hesitantly reached towards the speaker button, and suddenly the voice whispered loudly through the whole room, strained and dreamy and sad.

"My Doctor," it said, drifting. "I'm fading … I can't hold on."

"No, I got that…" The Doctor said confusedly, trying to react normally as he pushed back his long fringe. But the terrible voice was unsettling. "Why do you need me? Who are you?"

"Everything," the voice murmured. His brows knitted together. "I was once everything, now reduced to nothing. You must save me."

"I – I'm afraid I can't, I'm sorry," he said deliberately. "The TARDIS … it's broken down a few miles out of Islington, won't be ready for hours. Did you say Cardiff?"

"I'm not strong enough…" the voice shuddered. "I can't…" Suddenly the console began to glow a faint iridescent gold, glittering tendrils reaching from it and spreading, and the Doctor grabbed Amy and leapt back. But it went back to normal after a second, and the voice said again, frustrated and weeping, "I can't."

"Did you do that?" he called out, almost afraid. The redhead at his side clutched to his jacket, staring at the phone. He recognized that voice from somewhere...

"I tried, Doctor, I tried." There was a breath. "I see you. I can see. I'm coming to you." Then it was gone. The phone went dead.

"_No_!" shouted the Doctor, jumping to the controls and pressing buttons and pulling levers like mad. "Who are you? _Who_ _are_ _you_?"

"Doctor," Amy interrupted gravely, worriedly. "What was that thing? It's coming here?"

"I believe it thinks it is, yes," the Doctor said. "Unless we can get out of here first. Rory! Team effort here!"

"What? What's going on?" asked Rory disconcertedly as he wandered in. "Why have we got to get out of here?"

"Something's coming for him," Amy filled him in. "And he doesn't know what it is. And it scares the piss out of him."

"I am not scared!" he shouted, affronted, as he slid open the panel again and threw some kind of gun-looking tool to her. "I just … it didn't sound like a very _friendly_ glowing disembodied voice who could control the TARDIS, okay? I've been called far too many times by creatures that need me in order to live, but they don't need _me_, if you know what I'm saying. They need my hearts, my voice, my body, my head, once one even needed my toes, I'm not sure why, but the point is they don't need _me_, and there's something about this that doesn't … feel … right." He leapt into action, reading monitors and scanning things and passing tools to his companions. "Can we just get a move on? Rory, hold this button."

The others grumbled into action as the Doctor took his place again. The truth was … he was terrified.

xxx

Hiromi had no idea how she'd gotten into this situation. The trees and rolling hills blurred past them as she sat in the passenger's seat, watching in horror as the angelic, yellow-haired being drove her car. Well, 'drove' wasn't the correct word. It was like she was moving them telepathically. Her eyes closed, she held both palms to the dashboard on either side of the steering wheel, her feet tucked beneath her. They moved at impossible speeds, but it didn't feel like it. The vehicle seemed to be gliding over the roads like they were ice.

Hiromi couldn't digest the impossibility of what she was watching.

"Are – are you sure you're okay?" she asked hesitantly. "You can do this?"

"Speed is more important than my energy," the being murmured. "Time will kill me faster than this does. It is a good machine. It listens."

"Y-yeah, I guess it's okay," whispered Hiromi. They were making record time, almost halfway to Islington in only ten minutes. She yelped as the vehicle moved through another car, pressing herself against the seat. The first time they'd done it she'd screamed so loudly that she'd surprised Rose, and the car had almost stopped.

"Don't make a sound," the bad wolf had told her, breathing deeply. "You'll break the wavelengths. I told you I moved us out of sync with the rest of the world. We do not exist in the broad-spectrum temporal parameters."

"This is fucking loony!" wheezed Hiromi, looking back at the recent yellow car. "This is mental! This is just…"

"Don't speak," Rose hushed her in that echoing, light voice. "Not a whisper."

She forced herself to be silent, choosing instead to hyperventilate and hold onto the door even more tightly.

xxx

"Got it!" shouted the Doctor triumphantly, leaping up and slamming something on the dash. The TARDIS shuddered and flashed red for a second, then rocked back and forth once with terrifying groaning noises. Amy and Rory shouted in surprise and grabbed the railing, and though the Doctor kept his ground, the exultant look slid off his face.

"What?" he yelled as the cabin lights went out, and they were left in the dim red emergency lighting. "No, you don't, you stupid machine, we need to get out of here! Do _not_ go into emergency power, that's the _opposite_ of what I want!"

He began pressing things and turning dials like mad, leaping around the console in some awkward dance.

"Doctor, what's happening?" Amy asked worriedly.

"I – don't know, she's shutting down! I can't figure out … gah!" He kicked the console and a few lights flashed on, but he didn't seem too pleased. "It's like she doesn't want us to move…"

"Doctor…" Rory said quietly, moving forward to stand with his wife.

"Not now, Rory, I've got to reset the–"

"No … the camera. Look outside. I think it's here."

The Doctor froze, turning towards him. "How did it…?" he murmured, moving slowly to the screen. "That's impossible, it's only been half an hour…"

Amy watched as the Doctor pulled down the screen, staring intently at it, eyes widening.

"No." He stepped back. She'd never seen him look so … horrified. "No, no way."

"What? _What is happening_?" she demanded. He turned to her, and the undertone in his next words made her realize they ought to be a lot more concerned than they were.

"Bad wolf," he said simply.


	8. Afraid and Alone

Hiromi didn't know how the thing left the car, but suddenly they were stopped in the country and it was walking across the highway towards a blue phone box. For a moment she was still, watching it glide slowly over the landscape, hospital gown and robe whipping about her thick frame. Then she saw its clothes on the seat behind her, and for some reason, it made her snap. This was really happening. She was really wherever the hell she was, really seeing this all happen and talking to whatever the hell that thing was. Before it had a chance to come back, without any idea what she was doing, she leapt over the seat and into the driver's side. Quietly so as not to attract the being's attention again, she opened the door and dumped the pile of laundry, and attempted to start the engine. It hesitated, and then missed the catch again, and again. She could've cried in frustration and stress and confusion.

The concept of what was happening still eluded her. She only knew she wanted to get out of there, and she wanted out _now_.

xxx

The Doctor hesitated at the door. Bad Wolf. No, not just that. It was Rose. His mind raced and overloaded with questions, and for one of the first times in his life, he had absolutely no answers to any of them. Amy and Rory stood behind him, waiting, holding their breaths. In the scarlet luminance of the reserve lights, they looked petrified. What would this mean for them? For him?

_Rose is back_, he kept telling himself, trying to rouse some kind of emotion other than terror. _You can see Rose again._

But was that a good thing?

Was it worth it?

"Right!" he shouted suddenly, turning on the companions behind him and using the volume he usually took when he was utterly baffled and couldn't afford to show it. Sometimes he could even trick himself into thinking the situation was under control if he was loud enough and confident enough and spewed words in constant enough streams. It didn't matter what the words were, as long as they kept coming. It wasn't working on himself this time. "You two, into your room, now. Go play Monopoly or whatever it is you do while I sort this, and do _not_ come out under any circumstances until I fetch you, understand?"

"I'm coming with you," Amy said instantly, dropping Rory's hand and stepping up beside him.

"Didn't you hear me? Go play Monopoly, Pond!" he ordered, determination creasing his features and adding years that should have been there.

"I'm coming too," Rory added, though it was a bit more halfheartedly. The Doctor threw up his hands.

"Oh, why do I even try? Look, you're not coming, okay? Either of you! Stay here!"

"Doctor," Amy said quietly, leaning in and catching his gaze. "Whatever is out there scares the crap out of you, and I am not having you face it alone. What if it wants to hurt you?"

"Like you could stop it," the Doctor murmured, and her drive faltered as her eyes widened. "Like anyone could stop it." He shook his sleeve with the other hand and pulled out his sonic screwdriver, flicking between settings like he did when he was nervous. "Anyway, it won't hurt me," he said, getting loud again as he gripped the handle. "It just wants my help."

"But you said…"

"Forget what I said, this is beyond anything I've ever said, or done, and there's no stopping it. I'll just have to do as she asks. Now, go to your room, both of you!"

With that he pulled open the TARDIS door, and before Amy or Rory could even think about following him out, he'd locked it behind him.

xxx

"Jack, come and hold this for me," the Metacrisis-Doctor said distractedly as he looked down his nose at the mess of wires in front of him.

"If I had a nickel," said Jack, but came to stand beside him anyway and held together the frayed wires he was handed.

"Oh, don't start." The Doctor jumped from his chair and took a few long strides around the table. He began to dig around in a box blankly, quickly, hoping the thoughts wouldn't have time to seep in with the simple task. Lately he'd found it really easy not to think about anything. He hadn't had such a grueling project in a while, not since he'd tried to build a sonic screwdriver and couldn't get past the 'sonic' part with only earth technology. He felt bad to admit that everything had come down on him at once, living as a human, mostly, and he'd gotten angry. So angry and sarcastic and just mean that Rose had left the flat in the middle of his outburst, and he thought she wouldn't return. His damned Donna side. His damned war-born side. Before he'd learned to tuck that away.

But four hours later she'd come back with a tub of ice cream and a stone-looking block in her hand. He'd have kissed her if she'd let him, partly because of the ice cream, partly because she'd held an industrialized Messylapian transference cube, one of the most advanced pieces of technology she could've found on earth. But mostly because she'd come back. "It came in to Torchwood a few weeks ago," she'd said hesitantly as he flipped it over in his hands. "I recognized it right away, I remember you using one to fix your screwdriver when we were on Messula. I thought, maybe…"

He'd kissed her anyway. For the first time since Norway, she hadn't balked at it.

"Doctor?" asked Jack, sounding hesitant as the Doctor pulled a thin wire and a clasp from the cardboard box. He hummed in acknowledgement and kept digging. "I've been thinking. When you make it back, is there … do you think I could come with you?"

The Doctor paused and closed his eyes. He'd had a feeling this was coming, from the moment he'd found Jack and confirmed that he was in the parallel universe. If Torchwood had still been active, he'd have been led to a new base, not a kind-of-base in an abandoned hotel room.

"No." He stood up with a handful of things. "No, I don't think that would be a good idea. I'm sorry."

"What? Why not?" demanded Jack, disillusioned resentment folding his dark brows. "There's nothing left here, Doctor. You saw the base. There's no team, no Torchwood. No place for me."

"I know, Jack, and I am sorry. But you're needed here."

The Doctor wanted to leave it at that. But, Jack was determined to have the conversation.

"Is it like last time? Is your prejudice coming out again in your humanity?" Jack sat in the chair, fingers turning white against the cords. "I don't have to even talk to you if you don't want. I can work at different times. I'll have Torchwood, I'll have Ianto … I'll have my life back."

"It's not that," the Doctor insisted, cutting him off.

"Is it the hopper? I have a code, for the vortex manipulator, to carry two people. We could modify it, and-"

"Jack, stop," he warned. "Listen. You're a fixed point in time, in _this_ dimension, and not any other. Fixed, do you hear me? The only man to ever be one. If I were to remove you … well, this cosmos wouldn't be able to exist without you. Time and space would collapse, right into the hole you left." He took the wires back, but Jack's hands still hovered, and he stared at the Doctor as if he were … well, alien. "All of this, every future and every existence, sort of _depends_ on you now. You're like … a sink plug, for the universe. Not a perfect metaphor, since you will eventually die, but a decent one until then."

"I don't believe you," said Jack, slowly shaking his head.

"Believe it. You're the most important man in the universe, Jack Harkness." The Doctor tried to ignore Jack's hard, deadened look and changed the subject. He beamed as he plugged a blue wire into the round piece of tech he held. The device exploded into life with a loud crackle and a flash of white. "Oh, perfect! We're in business! Ha!" he twisted in his seat, fiddling a dial with a naïvely huge grin, trying to think only of getting back to Rose. Like he'd been able to think of much else. "Now, formerly governmentally-influential Torchwood, where do you expect we can obtain any decent amount of astatine?"

xxx

"You did the right thing, Tosh," murmured Gwen, putting a hand over the Asian woman's as they sat in the break room. "The thing would have killed her if you didn't do it. Now at least she's got a chance."

"Yes, but she _hasn't_," Tosh insisted shakily, fingering her yellow coffee mug. "That's the thing – no human could have survived that vortex, no matter what was possessing them. I killed Rose Tyler. I killed someone. And now we've lost our top agent because I underestimated things."

Gwen sighed. "I'm sure she's fine. She's tough. Now, I'm sorry, I have to get back to the Weevil thing. I had to leave it loose, and it's near the mall. Will you be okay?"

Tosh nodded with a tight smile.

"Okay," Gwen inclined her head. "You should go home for a bit. Rest up. I'll be back in an hour to take over for you."

With that, she left. Tosh took another sip of coffee, not tasting it, but feeling it burn her tongue. She loved Gwen, she really did, and knew she was always doing what was best for the team, but she'd just been so … dehumanized since Rhys had died. It had been six years and she still didn't look anyone in the eye. She didn't even seem to be upset over losing Rose or the Doctor, and she'd worked with them both heavily for two years. Four with Rose.

There was something strained about the way she comforted people, something almost hateful in whatever she said, as if she thought others didn't have the right to be unhappy like she did. Tosh remembered when the Welsh girl had first joined, when one day she walked into the Vault to find Gwen crying because one of the Weevils they'd kept had died in its cell. She'd named it George. Tosh had comforted her then, and made her feel better, and it wasn't even her fault. Plus, the Weevil would have killed her in a second given the chance.

Tosh just needed something. She felt empty. Ianto and Owen were rubbish at this. She wished Gwen, the only other female at Torchwood now, could say something to help.

But Gwen was desensitized and dead inside, and Tosh could only blame herself.

xxx

The radio began playing as soon as Gwen started the Batmobile, as it had been dubbed by Rose on one of their field missions together. She wrapped herself tighter in her leather jacket as she waited for the SUV to warm up, and rested her head on the wheel.

She cried harder than she had in ages.


	9. The Doctor's Fury

The night air was crisp and cool, and the countryside wind pulled and twisted at his tweed jacket like grabby, childish hands. The Doctor turned his sonic screwdriver over in his long fingers, trying to gather the courage to turn from the TARDIS and face whatever he had to do.

"Doctor," the thing murmured from behind him, and suddenly it wasn't the resounding, sharp tone he'd expected, but he heard Rose. Rose's voice. It finally kicked into him the will to turn towards the highway. Rose was there, looking terrible and beautiful and solemn like he'd only seen her once. She shouldn't be there. It wasn't her. Yet … his stomach couldn't help but give a happy twist, and all he wanted to do was pull her into a familiar hug. The circumstances and his confusion forced him into cumbersomeness, however.

"Yes, hello," he murmured, and felt it was the entirely wrong thing to say. He'd imagined this moment far more often than he'd have liked to admit, but it usually involved himself having more eloquence. Also, Rose being more … aware that they were meeting again. Or actually being Rose. He still couldn't decide which was the more likely. "What are you?" he asked, for lack of a better question.

"I have heard the query from many today," the being said loudly, tone somehow ringing over the open, grassy hills, eyebrows slightly knitted in pain. She seemed to look through him, unblinking. "My answer is unchanging. I am, always have been, and will always be Bad Wolf."

The Doctor watched her for a second as her long, bright hair whipped around her, face lit even for the dusk. She still stood several yards away from him and the TARDIS, and he had a feeling she did so to put him more at ease. It didn't work. "Yes, but see, you're not," he contended, waving behind him at his blue box. "You can't be; it's impossible. Bad Wolf is … well, it's a lot of things, but basically it's what happens when the woman you're impersonating looks into the heart of the TARDIS, right behind us. And you're clearly not inside my ship, nor have you been for quite some time, or I would have noticed. So why don't you tell me who you are, what you're doing here, and why you decided to take one of the forms that would leave me the most guilt-ridden?"

The woman was silent for a moment, her terrycloth robe and blue-spotted gown fluttering around her hips. Something was off, something was wrong about her. Something was hidden.

"I am Bad Wolf," she insisted, and the Doctor shook his head.

"No, you really aren't. See, I thought you were, at first, but there's no way," he continued, trying to talk loudly again until he could sort it out in his head. He lifted his screwdriver and scanned her quickly, then lifted it to his ear to listen to the results. "Human!" he said in surprise. "You're actually human, oh, very good. That means you're using a body, aren't you? How did you shift it to take Rose's shape though, I wonder? And why?"

"I have shifted nothing. It is Rose Tyler you look at." The woman lifted a hand to her head and grimaced before composing herself again. "You are wrong, Doctor. You say Bad Wolf is the heart of your ship. You are mistaken. You do not know what it is, and you are scared. Bad Wolf is written in the time vortex, and forever sketched in Rose Tyler's mind. It could only have been her. It was always going to be her. I traveled across the universe searching for you, the last time lord in the last TARDIS, searching for a way to survive. But I found her in your stead, and I waited, and when she asked for me, I obliged. But she is weak." The eyes flicked to him, the hauntingly empty eyes. "I had to find you. Had to find the only remaining link to join with the vortex again."

"Why are you…?" The Doctor tapped the screwdriver against his leg, and then something drew him to study her face and legs and revealed skin more closely. Almost as if they'd had a perception filter on them, slashes and welts and gouges and scalds began to appear on the flawless skin, and he realized they'd been there the entire time. "Oh, you didn't," he murmured forebodingly, gripping his hair. "You wouldn't! You dragged her body across the vortex just to survive!" Anger swallowed him, and his logical side went out the window. "Whatever you are, and you're not Bad Wolf, not really, you used her as a pathway, a holding cell, for your own gain! You're killing her!"

The thing shook its head, emotionless. "I saved her," it whispered, and he heard it as clearly as if she'd put her mouth to his ear, despite the distance. "I am her."

"You condemned her the second she breathed you in, didn't you?" the Doctor said furiously, turning again and running a hand through his hair. "'It was always going to be her' – you were trapped in that universe with no TARDIS and no time lord and she was the only one it could work on! Because she has Bad Wolf written in her mind! She's just a human, what does her life matter? _Right_?"

"Please, Doctor," whispered the thing. "I could not have come if she hadn't needed to. She asked for me."

"Let her go!" he roared, spinning on her and closing the distance between them. He pointed his sonic screwdriver to her unmoving chest.

"I can't…"

"_Let – her – go!_"

"I can't…!"

"_What are you?_" he demanded. "If you are Bad Wolf, why has she lasted this long already? The last time she became you, she almost didn't live five minutes! Why is she still alive?"

Bad Wolf had tears streaming down her face, but she didn't seem to notice them. They weren't hers. They were Rose's. "She won't last much longer," the thing declared, almost a plea. "She sees all of time in her mind. But it is a damaged link. I was fractured, I was broken. I am not whole. I was dying, I was dead. I was only an echo. That is why she still lives."

The Doctor stared at it, fury still burning in his eyes. Something suddenly clicked and he narrowed his eyes.

"Are you the core of another TARDIS?" he asked decisively. "The core of a dying one? A dead one?"

"I do not know," she murmured. "My sight is fractured."

The Doctor spun in frustration, hands out, before facing the thing that wasn't Rose again. "If I release you into the heart of mine, if I join you with the vortex…" He took a breath, voice lowering to a deadly pitch. "Will she survive?"

The voice was too indifferent. "There is a chance. I do not know."

"No, I didn't think you would." He pressed two fingers to his eyes. "Will it destroy the TARDIS?"

"I do not know."

"What'll happen if I leave you here?" he asked, mind racing.

"We will perish, body and mind alike. Now I am one with the human and it is too late to leave her of my own accord."

The Doctor stared at her, and she stared back, eyes white and unseeing and beginning to dim.

"She cannot hold me," the thing murmured suddenly, and then a shimmering, silvery breath escaped her. The white eyes drifted shut as if in slow motion. "We are passing." And then its feet crumpled beneath it. The Doctor jumped to catch her in a fluid motion and lifted her cold body to him. The glow seemed to be seeping from her body, as Rose went limp, lifeless, dull blonde hair soft against his cheek. There was still the barest flutter of a pulse in her throat.

He had to make several difficult decisions very fast.

xxx

Amy crouched over the monitor, gripping it in white fingers as she bit her nails. "What is that thing?" she murmured, watching the Doctor approach it slowly. The camera kept flickering in and out with the emergency power and she shook it to keep the picture steady. Rory hovered uncertainly around her, casting glances back at the door every so often.

"Whatever it is," he said, watching the glowing woman's barely moving mouth and her hair, too-perfect hair that gently caressed her face and moved slowly in the wind, "something's not right. We should help him."

"How, Rory? He's locked us in, remember?" she smacked the screen again and the picture took for another moment. As she began to twist her soft red hair between her fingers anxiously, he heard her mutter darkly, "Monopoly."

"Well … maybe that's how he wants us to help him," he tried. "Maybe the Monopoly board is a high-frequency alien transmitter that'll stun whatever that thing is so he can…"

"Please shut up." Amy's concentration intensified, but he was pleased to see a brief little smile take her mouth. "C'mon, Doctor," she instructed the screen quietly. "Just come back. Get back in the TARDIS and fix it, and we can fly off. Don't help that thing."

But she knew expecting the Doctor not to save someone was as futile as telling him not to show off. She watched, gritting her teeth as the Doctor grew angry. Really mind-bendingly fuming. She'd never seen him explode like this, and she couldn't even hear what he was saying. "Rory," she murmured. "Something's wrong."

"I've been saying that," Rory nodded.

"No, I mean," she twisted some dials as the picture buzzed out again. "Something is really, really wrong."

Amy was interrupted as the TARDIS shuddered violently and she was thrown off her stool. Rory grabbed her before she fell and she took the railing beside him. "What was that?" she asked indignantly.

"I don't know," Rory murmured. "But the console is opening."

"What do you mean, the console is–" Amy froze as she realized a section of the dashboard _had_ come loose and clattered to the floor. Something golden, some kind of gas and light and energy poured out of it like mist. "Oh God, it's not _dying_, is it? Where's the Doctor?"

"I think it's … fine…" Rory said softly, as the light began to fill the ship, taking the walls and floor. It was so bright, so unearthly white, he almost couldn't keep his eyes open. Suddenly he realized Amy was no longer beside him, but wandering towards the console. "Amy! Don't go near it! _Amy!_" he shouted, but she was almost touching it now.

"Don't be such a worry-wart," she murmured. He went after her and they both fell to the floor as the TARDIS rocked again. Rory was careful to drag his wife to the other side of the control room, even though she fought against him, yelling, "Let me _go_, you prat, I only want to see what's happening!"

The TARDIS doors flew open suddenly with a rush of wind. "You two, I told you to get _out_!" the Doctor shouted at them. He was carrying the woman, but she wasn't glowing anymore. "Why does no one ever _listen_?"

"Doctor, what's wrong with the room?" Amy asked, spell broken as she caught the frantic look on his face. "Why did you bring her in here?"

"Just … shut up, would you?" The Doctor propped the woman over the dashboard where the cover had broken, and had his eyes shut tightly. "You have to get out of the TARDIS, and stay a clear distance!" When the two stayed frozen and made no move to leave, the Doctor turned on Amy, blazing stare unusually inexorable. "_Now_!"

It felt like forever that they stared each other down, until finally the Doctor turned away to the other woman. Amy's eyes widened. She knew she shouldn't because of the situation, but she felt … like the Doctor had given up on her. Abandoned, like saving the glowing girl was more important than making sure she was out of harm's way. That had never, ever happened before. He had _always_ put his companions' safety first.

"C'mon," she murmured, and despite every cell that screamed at her to stay and help the mad man, she took her husband's hand and dragged him out of the ship. The Doctor barely seemed to notice that she was listening to him for once.

"But the Doctor…" Rory protested halfheartedly.

"Is busy. He obviously would rather us safe than trying to help." She closed the door behind her, and hugged her sweater around her against the bitingly chilly English countryside. There was a huge willow a fair distance away, and Rory led her to it obediently. They leaned against the tree and watched the unbelievably normal-looking TARDIS, consumed with worry.


	10. The Death of Rose Tyler

Rose died.

She lay among the clouds of misty light that flooded out of the chaotically assembled dashboard, and her savior was so preoccupied with finding the right frequency to transfer Bad Wolf that he didn't even notice for a full minute. Her heart had slowed to almost stopping. Her breaths were shallow at best, non-existent at worst. The way her skin glowed with heat retreated down her legs like a timer, and when it hit zero…

There was one last breath. A shining, silvery cloud laced with dead Huon particles. Flickering like chromatophores in fish.

As the Doctor looked at her, everything seemed to stop. Time was up. The world fell apart.

"No!" he shouted, pulling her up against him, before the shining opening. Her head fell back, skin going white and freezing under his fingers. "No, not like this, Rose! Come on, I have it! I found it! Bad Wolf!" He desperately shone the screwdriver at the console a few times, and it shot sparks, but didn't do much else. "Barcelona, remember? I still haven't taken you to Barcelona!" A cry of frustration escaped him, and he tangled his fingers in her light hair, trying urgently to find something real to hold on to. Her head lolled loosely against the crook of his neck, like it used to when she would fall asleep against him. A million forevers ago.

It took all the strength he had to lay her limp body on the floor. For a moment he stared at her, all battered and cut up, and hated the other TARDIS for what it had done. Then he hated himself for allowing it to happen.

He hadn't been able to do it. He couldn't save Rose.

The self-blame was overwhelming. He found himself frozen, watching her unmoving figure on the glass, unable to look away. "Oh, Rose," he murmured.

Then something hit him, suddenly, without warning, before the horror and grief set in, and he couldn't believe he'd been so stupid. There had been a car trying to start when he had been talking to Bad Wolf. And it had managed to pull away, as Bad Wolf Rose had collapsed in his arms. "A power bond," he breathed, eyes moving ahead and seeing nothing. "A _power_ _bond_!" The Doctor jumped into action, leaping down the platform stairs in one bound and throwing open the TARDIS door. As much as it plagued him, he had to leave Rose alone in order to save her life.

xxx

"Are you sure this will work?" asked the human-time-lord metacrisis as he donned the black earpiece, flattening the crisp dark suit against his thin frame.

"Not at all," Jack replied, glancing at him. "God, you're skinny, aren't you?"

"Oi!" the Doctor protested, taking the military ID badge from him and cocking an eyebrow.

"Not saying it's a bad thing. I've dated plenty of skinny guys."

"Yeah, well, keep your eyes up here, captain."

Jack chuckled as the Doctor fixed the badge to his lapel and straightened out again. "So they're using Canary Warf as some classified government base now," he continued. "All I can get is that they're mixing some kind of experimental med supplies for the army, I can't get far with this IP. Tosh did find out, when she was here to hack in, that they've moved everything alien to the basement and locked it down. There was a heavy supply of uranium fueling one of the big weapons. All higher-ups knew that, when there were higher-ups." Jack slipped his vortex manipulator on, and a thick pair of tinted glasses over his eyes. The Doctor laughed.

"You look like the men in black. How are we going to get past-" he started, but Jack held up the manipulator, tapped it once to produce a red flash, and the next thing the Doctor knew, he was lying on the floor with a killer headache.

He pulled himself up with a heavy groan, holding his head. "God, what did you do?" he grumbled to the man in black, who was pouring himself his third scotch of the day.

"Oh, you're up," he noted with a grin. "It was a demonstration."

"Up? Was I ever out?"

"About … five minutes, give or take. It's normally fifteen on humans, but I guess you're not all human, are you?"

The Doctor winced as he pulled himself to his feet. He must've bruised one of his shoulders badly in the fall. "You could've warned me you were going to do that, I'd have laid out pillows or something," he complained. Jack laughed and sipped his drink nonchalantly.

"Did you not pass out because you were wearing the manipulator, then?" The Doctor took the second glass off the counter, gritting his teeth as he swallowed. He still didn't like alcohol, but at least it wasn't wine. "Some kind of wearer's field against the knockout waves?"

"No. Not a field." Jack reached into his breast pocket and presented a second pair of ridiculously FBI sunglasses. The Doctor shook his head as he took them.

"Oh, you are kidding me. A bit conspicuous, aren't they?"

"Doesn't matter. They won't even see us before they wake up. And we'll be gone by then."

"You plan to take out a whole building with a vortex manipulator? What if sunglasses are part of the uniform?"

Jack gave a grin that was promptly ignored, and put his shades back on. "Then I guess we're screwed, aren't we?"

"Jack, I do _not_ like this plan. And why do you need a gun?"

"Oh, live a little. I won't use it unless I have to." Jack slipped his revolver in the back of his waistband, and armed into his heavy military coat. "Life without the TARDIS has turned you soft, old man."

Bastard. "Fine," the Doctor consented, sliding on the lenses and trying not to think about how ridiculous he most likely looked. "Let's go."

xxx

It felt like she was moving through a dream as Hiromi stood beside her car, holding the nozzle in with a still-shaking grip. She was trembling so badly that she had missed for a moment, and the petrol she'd just paid for had poured all over her shoes. The strong odor of it was assaulting her nose. But at least she could feel her toes squelching in her slip-ons, and wasn't numb anymore.

She still had no idea what the hell had just happened, and would've been certain she was dreaming had the sign across the road from her not said "Islington, N. London, 10 miles," in surreally cheery lettering. Had she had her way, Hiromi would've kept driving until she reached Cardiff again, and gone into her flat and not come back out until she was certain everything weird had just _stopped_. But whatever that … _thing_ was, it had nearly wrung her tank dry of fuel, and she'd barely made it to the tiny petrol station a minute up the road before the Honda had sputtered out of commission again.

Hiromi held her jacket closed against the chill, trying to think of anything but the glowing woman.

Suddenly and without warning, there was a powerful stab of pain in her midsection and she gasped, folding over and almost dropping the hose. It was gone quicker than it had come, though, and she winced as she straightened. After a minute she decided it was just pain triggered by the shock, and climbed in the driver's seat even more determined to make it back to her bed.

"Excuse me," a young voice called breathlessly as she closed the door, and she almost didn't roll down the window to respond. But the man's appearance was odd and familiar enough that she did, and his blue bowtie appeared at the door before his face.

"Yes, hello?" she managed, though she couldn't make herself force a smile.

"Hi there," he panted, and the stress-ridden features made it obvious that he had to try just as hard as her to be cordial at the moment. "I'm the Doctor. What's your name?"

She gave him an odd look, but he didn't seem deterred by it. "Hiromi," she said slowly. "Hiromi Sato."

He grinned. "Good to meet you, Hiromi Hiromi Sato! Now, I'm going to tell you something, and please don't drive off because you will literally die if you do."

Hiromi leaned back, brow creasing as she reached for the window crank preemptively. "What is this, are you robbing me?" she asked angrily, emotion suddenly seeping in. "How old are you, seventeen? Listen, I've just had the strangest day of my life, and I am so unhappy right now I guarantee I could take you out if I had to, and-"

"I don't doubt it," the man said in surprise. "But no, sorry, that wasn't a threat. It was a warning. I just … you're sort of … oh, this will take a lot of explanation, won't it?"

She raised her eyebrows. "I suppose you're going to tell me to come with you if I want to live, there's no time to explain and you'll enlighten me later?" she asked sardonically. The man raised his eyebrows, or lack of.

"That's right- have we met before?" he said curiously, then shook his head to cut off her response. "No, wait, honestly, there's no time. You were the one who brought Bad Wolf to me, weren't you? The girl, the blonde glowing girl?"

Hiromi hesitated, but the man had such a childishly expectant face on that she found herself answering. For some reason she knew he wasn't there to hurt her; she sensed the desperation of a man who just needed help. "Y-yes…"

"And you were the one there when she turned all…?" His hands waved about his face and he puffed out his cheeks with a blowing noise.

"All … glowing, yes."

"Perfect, yes, good! I need you to come with me!"

"What? No!" Hiromi shook her head. "I'm not going anywhere with you!"

"Why not?" the man asked, confused.

"Well … stranger danger and all that! I just want to go home and–"

She was interrupted by another twisting burst of agony in her abdomen, and dropped her keys on the floor with a cry. It was stronger this time, blindingly strong, and it wasn't going away, and she just wanted it to stop…

A moment later, she found herself bent over the wheel and panting, so pain-free she couldn't help but wonder if she'd imagined it. The stranger, the Doctor or whatever he called himself, had dropped to her height and was looking concerned. "What did it feel like?" he asked, suddenly completely serious and quiet, and she swallowed.

"Like … something was being ripped out of me," she breathed shakily. To her surprise, he nodded.

"Yes, I was afraid of that. Will you come with me or not?"

"Wait – you know what it is?"

"Well, I'm the Doctor," he reminded her, sounding slightly surprised that she'd forgotten already. "Now, come on! Just leave the car here, it's faster if we run!"


	11. Amy and Hiromi

"All right, quick, get in!" instructed the Doctor as he yanked open the door to the TARDIS, motioning to Amy and Rory to stay put.

"What, in the box?" asked Hiromi doubtfully. The Doctor rolled his eyes.

"No, in that mole hill over there, do you see it? _Yes_, in the box, my god, humans are thick! Right now, please, I said 'quick', didn't I?"

Hiromi paused, and the Doctor could see the layer of distrust that clouded her dark eyes. "What, so you can lock me in and take my car or whatever it is you want, _Doctor_?"

The Doctor closed his eyes in frustration. "Hiromi Sato," he said, serious and quiet. "I am asking you to please trust me, and just get in the box, because I have a friend in there whose life depends on it. And yours, actually. Okay?"

She stared at him for a second, unmoving, and finally lifted a hand to brush her shining dusky hair out of her eyes. "Yeah, okay, fine. I'll get in the box."

The man clapped and grinned, opening the door and leaping inside. "Good girl! Come along!" He was too busy worrying to remember to warn her about the dimensionally transcendental state of the TARDIS, however, and therefore wasn't expecting it when she gave a squeak and bolted right out again. "Oh, Hiromi, don't!" the Doctor groaned, and chased after her.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no," he heard her muttering to herself as she stalked away. "No, no, no, I am done with this loony bunch and I'm going home, and I'm not going to think about it anymore." She turned suddenly, held out a hand for him to shake (which he didn't), and nodded. "Goodbye, Doctor whoever you are, I'm leaving, all right? Good luck with your friend."

"Now, wait, you're not even going to try?" The Doctor asked, disappointed being a very weak term for what he felt. "You're just going to leave and kill both of you?"

"If that's what it takes, yes! I'm not dealing with this mental shit for another second, all right?"

"Now, just calm down, and…"

"It's bigger on the inside!" shrilled Hiromi, forcedly calm demeanor suddenly gone as she waved a shaking finger towards the TARDIS, eyes wild. "It's bigger on the inside! What the actual hell are you playing at? What was in my car earlier? _What is that thing?_"

"Ah. Well, _that_ thing is my spaceship," explained the Doctor, irritatingly calm about it as he briefly looked back, "and the thing inside your car this morning was my friend, who's kind of possessed by another spaceship right now. Do I really have to go into it, or will you help me first?"

"You mean to say y-you're an – an alien?" stuttered Hiromi after a moment.

"Well … yeah, if you like."

What the Doctor was expecting to happen, what usually happened, was for her to scream again, or nod and suspend her disbelief enough to accept it, or shout at him and gape some more. What he was not expecting was for her to immediately spin on her heel and walk away. He just felt like he'd been rejected.

Suddenly Amy was running towards them, and the Doctor sighed and rubbed his eyes, not even trying to stop her anymore. He paced as she grabbed the Asian girl by the arm, and though he couldn't hear what she was saying, her tone sounded convincing. Hiromi had stopped, anyway, and was listening hesitantly. He kept stealing glances towards the TARDIS, and inside, Rose. He wished Amy would hurry up. Now that they had Hiromi within a short distance he knew Rose would be okay for now, but how long would that last? He didn't understand the confines of the power bond yet. What would happen if the woman left after all?

Well, he'd have to stun her, of course, temporarily. He couldn't just let her go now, for Rose's sake. He couldn't just let _Rose_ go.

The Doctor looked back at the redhead again, but she didn't seem to be making much progress. Hiromi Sato looked readier than ever to bolt.

Sato. Where had he heard that name before?

He was distracted by laughter. Amy was chuckling. Why was she chuckling? Didn't she understand the dire situation?

Now Hiromi was laughing as well, though her eyes were still a bit wild with fright. _Women_. Why did he always have to bring _women_ along?

"If I can interrupt the tea party," he announced loudly, and Amy looked round at him. "She's dying in there, right now, and you're telling _jokes_?"

"Doctor, wait in the TARDIS," Amy instructed him.

He raised an eyebrow with a single incredulous laugh. "Amy, you don't tell me to wait in the TARDIS, I tell _you_ to wait in th–"

"Doctor," Amy said, as if there were heavy connotations behind the word. "Go. TARDIS. Now."

The man was about to argue, but he realized this was a lot bigger than slight emasculation, so he set his jaw and began towards the ship. He hoped to any higher power that Amy knew what she was doing.

xxx

Rose's skin was warming up under his fingers again. That was a relief. Bad Wolf was restoring itself inside her body, but the Doctor rather thought it seemed to be taking its time about it.

He sat cross-legged beside her limp form, the inexplicable bright light creating a canvas and illuminating every shadow. In the pure whiteness of the misbehaving TARDIS he was unable to help but admire the way her full dark eyelashes still managed to whisper against her bruised, battered cheeks. The way her nose turned up and her lips circled the slightly-too-big teeth. She was still beautiful. How many times had he wished her back? Countless. Even the times he'd pretended he didn't need her anymore, because he was a new Doctor and she was still Rose, happy with her own human and not needing him anymore. The girl, no longer a girl, had still crossed his mind, though. To hell with the Metacrisis, the Doctor beside her now wished she'd been there for ages. He had wanted her to come back.

But not like this. Never again like this.

The Doctor sighed and looked back at the door anxiously. How long would it take Amy to convince the woman to stay? It wasn't a hard decision, was it?

Rose stirred slightly and breathed in, beads of sweat dotting her forehead, and his fingers tightened around hers. She didn't take another lungful, however, and his worrying continued as he fiddled with his sonic screwdriver settings. The radiant white walls of the console room gave it a surgical feel, and he didn't like it. He stared at Rose, still trailing his hands over her skin's welts and discolorations. He'd let his girl get hurt. The guilt was maddening. He sighed.

She was still beautiful. But it was a much different beautiful than when he'd first met her.

The innocence of it was gone.

xxx

"I don't want to," Hiromi kept saying. "I can't get caught up in this. I'm done. I want to go home."

Amy sighed. Some people just couldn't handle it, she supposed. They only saw the bad in the word 'alien', and they didn't want to believe. "Okay. You can go home. Just please, please help the Doctor first. He won't admit it, but he's rubbish without us little people."

That got another weak smile, but she still shook her head. "I don't want to. I can't go back in there."

"Oh, come on. It's not all bad, you know. The time and space thing. I mean, yeah, most of the time it's dangerous, but it's worth it. To travel with him, to see the stars and the planets and the little green men-"

"_I'm not travelling with that mad man_," Hiromi insisted. "I won't."

"He's not…!" started Amy, but then she realized she had no defense. "Okay, but you don't have to travel with us. I'm just saying that he'll take care of you. He won't let anything happen to you. He's more than … well, he's not human, but…"

"Time Lord," supplied Hiromi, sounding as though the word left a bad taste in her mouth, and then suddenly clasped her head as if it hurt. Amy started.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Mhm, I just … idunno. I've been getting weird pains all day."

"He said it'll stop if you help his-" Abruptly, Amy stopped. A curious expression crossed her face. "Who told you he was a Time Lord?" she asked, still not even knowing the full connotations of the term herself. Hiromi shrugged.

"It must have come up. He mentioned it. Yes, I'm certain he mentioned it." The oriental woman looked concerned herself, but then shook her head as if trying to clear it. Amy's eyebrows pinched with disbelief.

"Look," she murmured. "The Doctor can help you. I can tell there's something wrong, like something's missing, yeah? That's what he does. He fills the void. He makes it better. Whatever's making you so hesitant, whatever's wrong, he can fix it. You just have to help him first." The woman was twisting under her gaze, looking anywhere but at Amy and still holding her head.

"Who says there's anything missing? There's nothing wrong with me!"

"I'm not saying there's…" she sighed, picking at her fingernails with the frustration. That's exactly what she'd been saying. "You don't have to be afraid of him. You don't."

There was silence for a long time. The wind whistled in Amy's ears like a kettle and blew her hair the wrong way, but she'd given up trying to keep it still. She glanced over to Rory, who looked like he was halfway between coming over and staying by the Worry Tree (as she'd dubbed it), the normal confused expression on. He wanted to know what was happening, and she didn't blame him. It was exactly what she wanted. The Doctor … she'd never seen him so agitated. So completely consumed with worry, replacing every ounce of confidence and know-how. He was just lost. And she felt like, as his best friend, she had to make it better.

"He'll really fill the void?" asked the girl suddenly, quietly. Amy turned to her, expression less than dim now. "He can find what's missing?"

Amy sighed in relief, smiling hopefully. "I promise," she murmured genuinely.

"Will you come with me?"

Amy shook her head. "I can't. It's you he needs. I'd only get in the way."

Hiromi paused. "Okay."

Amy watched the willowy Hiromi Sato wrap her arms around herself and begin hesitantly towards the TARDIS, and hoped she'd done the right thing. She didn't stir as Rory, good old Rory, always predictable and nearby Rory, perfect husband Rory, came over and wrapped his arms around her. For the first time since she'd started travelling in that box, she nearly didn't trust the Doctor not to sacrifice someone besides himself.

xxx

There was a noise behind him that he instantly recognized as the TARDIS doors opening, and he turned quickly, half-expecting Amy to stand there with a sorry look on her face. But it wasn't Amy. The girl that stood there was smoothly olive-skinned, with smiling eyes (though her mouth was a trembling, nervous frown) curtained by shadowy hair.

"Hiromi Sato," he grinned slowly, jumping up and pulling her into a tight hug. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet," she warned. "Now what do I have to do?"

"No idea! I have absolutely not a clue. This should be enlightening." The Doctor leapt into action, moving things out of the way. "So what was the trigger the first time?"

"I'm sorry?"

"What made her turn all glowy?" He did the cheek-puffing action again, and Hiromi stuttered.

"I-I was doing some tests," she answered.

"Did you have to touch her?"

"Well, yes," she said, cheeks beginning to flame from the attention. "But I didn't after that. You know … just in case."

"Good, good, that was good of you. The feedback probably would have caused an energy collision so great that half of London would be underground right now." He made an exploding noise with his mouth, bursting his hands in accompaniment.

The statement was said with such an ordinary tone, as if half of London was underground quite often, that Hiromi fell into a double take. "_What_?" she squeaked, stepping even further away from the unconscious blonde on the floor.

"But never mind! If you two were to touch now, the TARDIS will contain the explosion, and we most likely won't die. So that's good!"

Hiromi's second squeak went ignored. He was pressing buttons and doing odd pulley things on the dash now, prepping the TARDIS to absorb the new heart as best he could. The walls went even whiter, and Hiromi looked around uncomfortably. "What do I do?" she asked.

"Just stay in the room for now. You may not need to do anything, the proximity is helping enough." The Doctor smiled up at her, pausing for a moment. "Honestly, thank you for coming back."

"I'm a nurse," laughed Hiromi, without humor. "I'm supposed to help people."

"Which you are."

He looked over suddenly as Rose began to move, groaning. The Doctor's heart lifted, even though he knew it wasn't the end.

"Bad Wolf?" he asked, but her skin was still battered and stayed the same flat grey tone.

"What?" she barely breathed, but it was all she could get out before she began to groan and cry out in pain, contorting on the glass. The Doctor leapt to her side.

"No, no, something's going wrong! Why isn't she Bad Wolf?"

"It's killing her, isn't it?" Hiromi murmured from the side, biting her nails.

"I think – so – Rose … Rose, it's okay, what's going on?" He pulled her up in slender fingers and tried stroke her hair back, but she wouldn't stop fighting him, shouting all the way. It seemed forever that she struggled, and the Doctor just felt useless. He couldn't do anything to help unless the dominant form was Bad Wolf. "Try touching her."

"_What_?" The woman stepped away. "But – London – you said…" She made the exploding noise, and the Doctor shook his head.

"I know, I know, I know, but we have to try. You're the link. You said you would help."

She stared at the writhing girl in the Doctor's hands – near death, throes getting weaker. Hiromi's eyes flicked up to the Doctor's, trying to trust him, even though something in her head begged her not to. She couldn't help it though.

She held her breath, and reached out to touch a palm to Rose's clammy cheek.

The girl took one last breath and fell limp, and everything went wrong.


	12. Microwaves

Or so she thought.

Hiromi fell backwards on the floor from the force, scrambling away from the radiant figure that rose from the Doctor's hands, beams of light exploding from her like torchlight. The room flashed brighter, just once, and then everything went dark except for a rosy burn. Hiromi barely noticed the Doctor's whoop of triumph, too frightened to even account for it.

"What happened?" she whispered, unable to take her eyes off of the girl in front of her. Slowly she realized that the area around herself was illuminated too, with the strange golden light. Hiromi held a hand up in front of her, and let out a breathless scream as she clambered to her feet again. The Doctor seemed to notice her examining her skin, and pulled out some kind of metal torch with a green light. It buzzed as he shone it over her. "Doctor, I'm glowing," she couldn't stop herself pointing out, even though he must have noticed.

"Yes, that's the power bond, I'm afraid," he answered quietly as he finished scanning her, or whatever he was doing.

"Oh," Hiromi squeaked.

"Don't worry, it's perfectly … well, I'd say 'normal', but considering… how about harmless? We'll go with harmless."

They watched the iridescent Rose Tyler for a strangely calm and quiet moment, the beams and noise and urgency from the minute before gone. Her eyes were closed serenely against creamy, now unblemished cheeks, looking as if she'd just fallen asleep upright. Arms hanging limply by her sides and toes an inch off the ground - Hiromi pretended not to notice this detail – and hair in limp curls on her shoulders.

"What are we waiting for?" asked Hiromi in a whisper.

"I don't know," the Doctor murmured in response, and that scared her more than any other answer he could have given.

All of a sudden Rose's eyes opened, and she breathed deeply with a vague smile, descending a few inches until her feet were on the ground. "Doctor," she said in a low voice, and it was a different sound than before.

"Why didn't you tell me about the power bond?" he demanded instantly, but she didn't answer. She swayed as if she might fall, and the Doctor quickly shifted as though he might catch her.

"She's still weak," the thing whispered. "I need to be rid of her now, Doctor. Help me."

Hiromi felt a dizzy flush come on, and felt as if she might black out. "You need to do it now," she choked, though she didn't understand why she said it. She fell back on the railing, blackness edging in on her vision. "Now, Doctor."

The Doctor hesitated as though under a huge amount of pressure, and then moved to lead Rose to the console. "Are you sure it won't hurt anything?" he asked, though Hiromi was sure he wouldn't consider doing it if it would. Again, she didn't understand why she knew. "If I do this, will everyone be okay?"

"I am not sure of much," the being said, eyes staring straight ahead. "But I know you will lose Rose Tyler if you don't."

The Doctor paused again, staring at the woman, and then nodded wordlessly. Almost instantly Rose buckled, as though something was being pulled from her. Light traveled in soft streams from her white eyes to the console below her, and the Doctor wrapped his arms around the form to steady her. It seemed to last forever. Hiromi felt her energy drain and she collapsed to her hands and knees, convulsing as though she might throw up, but she couldn't stop watching.

Finally the light stopped, the console closed, the being fell limp in the Doctor's arms, and Hiromi Sato passed out.

xxx

"Rory!" the call from the TARDIS was familiar, triumphant, and Amy was infinitely grateful for it, even if it wasn't calling her. Rory turned towards the Doctor, pulling Amy along with him. They'd barely been in there ten minutes, she thought.

"Yes, Doctor?" her husband answered in that mellow Rory voice.

"I'm going to need a nurse in here, I've got two women who've fainted on me and I've absolutely no idea what to do!"

Amy sighed in relief. "Did it work?" she called, not exactly sure what was supposed to have worked but knowing there must be something.

The Doctor grinned, and they were best friends again. She didn't know how he did that. "It worked," he affirmed, and then disappeared. Rory shrugged at Amy, who shrugged back, and then eagerly ran for the TARDIS. She heard Rory panting behind her but refused to slow down.

xxx

Jack was mostly quiet on their way to London. The Doctor thought briefly of the period they'd traveled together with Rose, how carefree and fun it was, nearly all the time. Then he stopped himself, because if he thought too much about Rose, the worry and doubt began to gnaw at him the way it never had before. Jack had other ideas, however.

"You never brought up Rose, by the way," he said with his usual horrible timing. "How is she?"

"I wouldn't know," the Doctor said shortly. "I'm not there. I assume she's fine."

"Well, how was she when you left?"

The road was too long, the Doctor thought. "She was looking for a new microwave," he said, with a small smile he couldn't help. "We've been going a while without one."

"A microwave," chuckled Jack. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"_I thought the waves would stimulate the sonic progression," he heard himself saying rationally. "I don't have the things I need here, Rose. The microwave should've done the trick."_

"_Not when it's a hundred and fifty years old!" Rose said despairingly, holding the black lump that used to be her landlady's microwave. "What am I supposed to do with this? The kitchen'll cost a fortune to redo, I'll probably get kicked out because of it! And what am I supposed to tell Mrs Finch? That my new boyfriend blew up half the flat because he put an alien device in the microwave?"_

"_She might believe you," the Doctor said reassuringly, ignoring the 'boyfriend' comment. "I swear she's got a bit of Slitheen in her."_

"_Not the time, Doctor!"_

"_Well, at least the screwdriver-in-progress is still okay," he said cheerily. "That would have been a load of work wasted."_

_The charred lump dropping heavily from her fingers to the table made him jump, and Rose stared at it as if it were the bane of her existence. The Doctor was surprised to see tears come to her eyes, over, he thought, such a silly issue. "Rose?" he asked, more gently than before._

"_I, um–" Rose swallowed and ran her fingers through her light hair. "I think you should go."_

"_What?" he asked confusedly. "Go where?"_

"_I don't care. Anywhere. I don't want you here."_

_He laughed once, humorlessly. "You don't mean that."_

"_I do, Doctor. It's not the same. You're not the same. All you're doing is reminding me of what I lost. What he took away from me."_

"_You don't mean that," he said again, biting the inside of his cheek and pushing his hair back._

"_Just go."_

_He was barely aware of the scrape of her chair as she pushed away from the table, couldn't hear her footsteps over the pounding of blood in his ears. Before he knew what he was doing, he'd shoved to his feet and gone after her, doing what he'd wanted to do for ages and ages, since Bad Wolf Bay. He swept her up into the most furiously passionate kiss of her life._

_He woke up in her bed the next morning, instead of in the spare bedroom. The microwave issue was only brought up again once after that, and it was for Rose to laugh at her overreaction._

"Let me guess – you broke the microwave," Jack cut into his thoughts.

The Doctor laughed. "Yeah," he said, eyes wide. "I broke half the kitchen too. Fortunately I was able to fix that enough for her to forgive me."

Jack laughed. "Women," he said. They were quiet for a bit longer, but it was a more pleasant silence than before. Jack brought up Rose again, asked what she'd been doing lately, how they were getting along and such. When the Doctor restrained his answers, Jack sighed. "You know, I miss her too," he said simply.

"Yeah," the Doctor said, thinking how good it would feel just to make her smile again. Now instead of worrying though, the thought just made him more determined to get back to her.


	13. Rose and the Doctor

_**a/n:** i'm so sorry for how long this took, i was not expecting the words to be so hard to find. it_ was_ fun writing this though!_

Someone was pressing at Rose's wrist through the thick darkness. She hurt all over, but it felt like old pain, as if she'd fallen down the stairs a few days before but was starting to feel better. Where was she? It felt like her bed, but didn't. And the smell was wrong, more like honey and peppermint than the round, sweet scent of her shampoo. Eyelids still heavy, the first thing she saw was orange. Orange and blue. Fire and ice.

"Who are you?" She scrambled back as she questioned the lanky man attending her. "What are you doing? Where's Tosh?"

"Tosh?" the man asked, holding up his hands in surrender. He seemed to have a permanently skeptical face. Not expression, but face, as though he was constantly disbelieving of things.

Rose closed her eyes briefly, trying to remember anything. Suddenly Chromaghost came back to her, the way it looked at her, into her, and then moved... "Wait … what was that thing? The thing that … went through me. Did it hurt me? Is that why I can't remember…?"

Her head was pounding. Rose sat up, deciding the man wasn't there to hurt her, and held her wrist to it in a moment of weakness. Her scarred wrists, battered and bruised wrists, instantly caught her attention and she pulled them away with a squeak. "What-!"

Suddenly she was examining the rest of herself, yanking the blankets away, pulling at the hospital gown that had come out of nowhere, brushing her fingers along legs and arms that were darkened with yellow-tinged bruises, scattered with clean scrapes and cuts, biting her lip with confusion and pain. "What did you do?" she shouted. "What happened to me? Where are my clothes?"

"Don't panic, I'm here to help," the man said in the most unhelpfully panicked tone possible. "I'm a nurse."

The poor guy looked like a deer caught in the headlights at her reaction. Rose managed to breathe herself into a calmer state if only for his sake, even though she felt so overwhelmed she could cry. But she wouldn't. She was strong. She was Torchwood. And she had questions.

"Okay," she murmured, mostly to herself, closing her eyes again to shut out the intense colors. "Okay, okay, okay. First off, who are you? My name is Rose."

"Rory," he answered slowly, looking as if he didn't think he should be in this situation.

"Okay," Rose said again shakily, the word her instant safety net. Her hands reached up to twist her tangled yellow hair anxiously between them. The nurse looked human enough, but then again, apparently so did a lot of aliens. Theories were beginning to shove themselves against each other in her head while she chose her words deliberately. "Hello, Rory. Next question. Where am I? Where are we?"

"You really don't remember?" Rory said doubtfully. Rose sighed.

"Look, this question-and-answer thing really only works if the question receives an _answer,_ not another question. Where – hold on, are you speaking English?"

"Well, I'm not speaking French. Are _you_ speaking English?"

Rose breathed in relief, not bothering to answer. "Good, Earth, at least. Britain, even. Good, very good. You're not a Chromaghost thing."

"What?"

"Though this all does look very alien," she commented, looking around. "Or just modern… Okay … now, what – in precise, exact terms – happened to me?"

That was where Rory clammed up. "I don't know anything about that," he said, and Rose believed him. "But … the doctor can probably explain it. I'll get the doctor."

"A hospital, then," concluded Rose to herself. It was a strange hospital, but she might have been delusional, she didn't know.

"No … wait, you don't know the doctor?"

And then Rose froze in place, a chill running through her with the hopeful comprehension. "What did you say?" she asked.

"The doctor. You don't know…?"

"What's the doctor's name?" she breathed. It was too good to be true. It was. She'd had dreams that went like this, only to end up with a bucket of ice cream in the middle of the night. It couldn't be. It was impossible. It was unimaginable. She wouldn't let herself be tricked into-

"I don't know. Just called the Doctor."

Rose couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. She was afraid that any moment she'd wake up in her own bed with no metacrisis and no time lord, just that cruel emptiness. And then, as if she was watching from a distance, Rory went to the door and called for her Doctor and the blood pounded in her ears. It seemed like ages, years, until she heard the footsteps and someone poked their head in.

"Is she awake yet, Ro-"

"You're a woman!" erupted Rose at once, all the confusion and anxiety and anticipation and burst bubbles turning her voice into almost nothing. The Doctor – slender, gorgeous, hair perfectly styled and auburn, legs long and darkly-clad beneath a short skirt, and very, very female – looked surprised and slightly frightened.

"Ehm – yes. I am."

"Is that even possible?"

"I'm sorry?"

"That you're… well, you've changed. You're ginger! And Scottish! And you don't have a pinstripe on you!"

The Doctor's expression remained completely blank. "Rory, I don't think I like her," she murmured to her companion. Rose's mind ignored the comment in favor of the recognition of Rory's gender.

"And you go around with men now? Who aren't Jack, I mean. Is that because you're not…? Well, you know… and where's Donna? And this is the TARDIS? It's so … different! And orange!" With every new extent to how much the Doctor had changed, she felt more and more disappointed, and oddly betrayed. She felt like the things coming from her mouth should have sounded positive, but she couldn't make a single one that way.

"Yes, very orange," the Doctor's expression grew more and more confused, along with Rory's beside her, and Rose wished she could make her jumpy babble stop.

And then everything clicked in her head, and in her tight-chested, achy, exhausted, wound-up state, she felt like a complete idiot. She began to mumble through a slightly relieved, mostly apologetic smile.

"Oh, God. You're … not the Doctor, are you?"

Slowly the red-haired woman shook her head, lips pursed. "Amy Pond." She wrapped her arms around her midsection, still not looking like she was very keen on Rose or the conversation. "I travel with him. The Doctor, I mean."

"Rose Tyler. I, well, used to travel with him. It's a long story."

"Apparently," said Amy abruptly, huge, wide eyes almost patronizing.

Rose was suddenly painfully aware of her own terrible state compared to this flawless woman. Her mysterious injuries that seemed to be everywhere, immensely unflattering gown and shorts, horrendous hair, the old make-up she could feel around her eyes. What would the Doctor think of her, after how perfect this new one seemed? And ginger. She _knew_ the Doctor had a thing for ginger. "You're gorgeous," Rose stated in wonder before she could stop herself, and then had the biggest urge to turn back over in the soft bed and pretend she hadn't woken up yet. To her great relief, ginger Amy Pond seemed to understand that it wasn't exactly a compliment but more an accusation, and lifted up her left hand.

"And married," she added pointedly.

"To-?" Rose blurted in disbelief.

"No! God, no. To this lovely oaf," Amy said hurriedly as she tugged at Nurse Rory's sleeve, and there was affection in the term even so. "The Doctor seems to be fairly asexual."

The weight seemed to lift from Rose's chest and she could breathe again, though not well. The word '_fairly'_ still seemed to echo around her pounding, feverishly hot mind.

The two women stared at each other awkwardly; tentative sisters of space travel, but nonetheless complete strangers.

"I, um…" Amy picked at her skirt. "We'll just show you to the Doctor then, shall we? Leave you two to, um … yeah."

"Okay," Rose tried to say, but the word was soundless.

xxx

She was pretty enough, Amy would give her that. But meeting this woman, a woman she'd never heard of before now, a woman who you could tell was used to being professional and collected but was certainly not now, made her question her stance with the Doctor and the TARDIS. And somewhat the Doctor's sanity.

"I think she's nice," Rory murmured, doing that creepy thing where he knew exactly what she was thinking. "She's just been through a lot."

"You think anyone with breasts is nice," Amy retorted, still feeling doubt. "You thought Marie Antoinette was nice."

"Well, she was."

"She called me a whore!"

"She meant it in a nice way, though. She offered you a job."

Amy hit Rory's arm and he rubbed it dramatically. "Rory," she said quietly in case she heard. She was trailing a distance behind them knowingly – or nervously, she couldn't tell – and Amy didn't want any worse chemistry between them. "What if he wants her back instead of us? She said it was a 'long story'. That can only mean…"

"You're overthinking this," he reassured her. "The Doctor would never just throw us away. He obviously still cares about her, and her story _can't_ be any longer than ours."

Amy sighed. "You're right. Of course you're right. This doesn't mean anything. He'll probably just bring her home and then take us to Kronos or something."

Rory smiled. "Did you just make a Star Trek reference?" he asked gleefully.

"No, shut up," she shot quickly, and then marched ahead down the corridor. "Here we are! Console room," she announced loudly.

"Then it hasn't changed that much," the blonde girl nodded jerkily, looking around her at the hexagon-laden hallway. The orange light was doing wonders for the wounds that covered her, Amy thought blankly. She still didn't know what to make of anything right now. Well, she had heard of the others the Doctor had taken. Briefly, sometimes … maybe once or twice. But he almost never brought them up, never willingly, and she'd certainly never met any of them before now. It was just … weird tension. Like once when she'd met one of her old boyfriends' ex-girlfriend, and the encounter had ended with one's smoothie going down the other's low-cut shirt. Amy wasn't proud to admit which one she'd been, but she could certainly say her refill drink had tasted a lot sweeter.

She hoped this wouldn't end up like that time, though, because this woman looked quite a lot stronger and well-trained than the dark, willowy ex-girlfriend had. Amy worked to keep her figure, and she could tell this Rose character – fairly slim but certainly no twig – worked only to kick some arse.

xxx

Rose didn't know. She didn't know what to do or think or expect as she slowly toed her way into the main room, the new glassy floor unexpectedly warm on her bare feet. After the shock with the woman-regeneration and the TARDIS change thing she almost fully expected the Doctor to have regenerated, but maybe not. Maybe her beanpole would stick his head up, still messy-haired, still dark-yet-bright-eyed, still wearing that pinstriped suit that fit him too well. Still with that 'adventure-awaits' grin and his hugs that folded over her like a wave. As much as the small hopeful part of her wished he was the same, she knew it would be harder that way. Really hard. Hard not to fall into old habits, hard to remember her own Doctor at home, hard to … well, hard to leave. That one would be unbearable.

So she entered leisurely with a hopeful, dreading, jumpy, excited heart, terrified and eager at what awaited her.

And when the moment came when he emerged from the console of the TARDIS, Rose Tyler didn't fall over or cry or laugh or shout at him like she'd expected. He watched her expectantly, unmoving, and she knew he was waiting for some kind of reaction, but she didn't have any. She was just … happy. And she walked gently over to his new regeneration and wrapped her arms around his waist, and he folded around her like a wave, and she breathed in his new scent and they didn't have to say anything.

Except she did. She choked, "I like the bowtie."

And he just chuckled and squeezed her tightly.

And they were Rose and the Doctor again.


	14. Better

Slowly Alex Madrid twisted the stem out of the scarlet apple she held in perfectly-manicured hands. "You're with _Torchwood_?" she said in disbelief, subconsciously rolling the stem between her teeth before flicking it in the garbage. It was a childhood habit.

"Yes. Captain Jack Harkness, Torchwood 3. Didn't they tell you we were coming?" asked the first man confidently in an American accent. Bleeding Americans, she scoffed.

"They don't tell me shit," she said lightly, biting down on the apple with a measured, lavish _crunch_, and speaking through the mouthful. "Why are you dressed like that?"

"It's how all our agents dress. Standard-issue. Now, the girl in front sent us down, it's vital that someone let us into the basement so we can retrieve-"

"Yeah – your secret little Torchwood things. You said that. All right, can I see some credentials, then? _Captain_?" The last word was wrought with a mocking tone. She looked expectantly up at him, assuming he was in charge. However, his face emptied and Madrid raised an eyebrow.

The taller one stepped forward. "Here's mine," he said with a free grin beneath his sunglasses, and held up a sheet of paper in a leather wallet. She could have sworn it was just white for half a moment, but clearly there were words on it. So many words she didn't bother reading many besides the name and agent number; 007 John Smith. What a name. What a number. But the ID was certainly official, so she nodded and turned to the Captain again. "And you?"

The men shared a look, and Harkness slid a hand in his pocket and pulled out a paper of his own, with much less written on it. Madrid leaned out of her chair.

"Captain Jack Harkness," she read skeptically. "And then it says 'single, up for anything', and 'call me'.

"Ah," Harkness said shortly. John Smith rolled his eyes theatrically.

"Right," she said decidedly with a brief, calm smile, reaching for her phone in the cradle. "This, gentlemen, is where I call security."

Then the men were gone, and she found herself blinking deeply, pulling herself up in her chair. Must've scarpered off, she decided. Idiots, dressing like film spies to get into a building holding nothing but medical supplies. Too old to be mischief-makers, but possibly perverts, or possibly dangerous. She'd call security just to be sure.

Since the receiver was already clenched in her fingers Madrid leaned over to dial the numbers, but frowned at the timer blinking on the tiny display. 18:47 – :48 – :49 … stupid thing must be broken.

And then the air around her exploded.

"I told you to be _careful_, Jack," groaned the Doctor as they lifted a heavy metal box from its place among the alien tech.

"Hey, at least I closed the safe door so it didn't affect us," the Captain argued. "Besides, it was just a soundshell, nothing harmful. Everyone will wake up in a few minutes no worse for wear."

"Except they're going to be swarming around the room that the two completely conspicuously-dressed strangers were headed towards," suggested the Doctor impatiently, voice too strained with the effort of lifting for even a small amount of condescension. "We've got to move quickly."

Jack bobbed his head towards the screen on his wrist pointedly. "I've got this, remember? It won't matter how many people we run into."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Use that as little as possible. I'd like to not harm anyone, and they could hurt themselves falling."

Jack nodded and they hobbled out the safe, the metal box slung between them. The contents were really only about a tablespoon's worth, but the protective cover was unbelievably weighty. He wondered why they didn't just put it in an ovbertine box, before he remembered that ovbertine was only native to Raxacoricofallapatorius, and Earth wouldn't be trading with them for another two thousand years. Little thoughts like this always jarred him, making him realize how young the planet still was; he was stuck with the overweight, greedy, screaming toddler that he often found the human race to be, compared with the rest of the universe. For the rest of his life.

Then he thought of Rose again and remembered that it wasn't necessarily bad. And he was almost with her.

They managed to carry the box through three hallways before a woman stumbled in from a door behind them, dressed in business attire and looking completely disoriented. "Hey – what is that? Who are you two?" She caught sight of them and began striding purposefully, and Jack dropped his side for a moment. His hand moved to his wrist momentarily before the Doctor shot him a look. He sighed.

"It's okay," Jack told her in that smooth American accent, pulling out his psychic paper and holding it up. "We're from Torchwood 3, sent to pick up some potentially dangerous material. I would stay back if I were you, ma'am."

The woman stopped in her tracks, looking fearfully at the box. "What's inside?"

"I'm afraid that's confidential. But, uh … it doesn't like to be disturbed. So if we could just be on our way."

"Were you the ones behind that awful noise?" asked the woman. Scottish, the Doctor noted.

"Alarm system," Jack lied. "Our apologies. We managed to shut it off after a moment."

She nodded. "Okay. Go on–"

"Don't let them through!" Both aliens spun to see the apple-eating receptionist from before, Madrid, chaotically mussed as she marched towards the three. "They're a security breach, Anne; call them in!" The Scottish woman raised her eyebrows and lifted a walkie-talkie.

"Now," muttered the Doctor. There was a flash of white, then, mid-sentence, the two women were on the floor.

"Ha!" Jack crowed, leaning to pick up his side again and then stopping dead. His eyes closed and he sighed. "Doctor…"

The Doctor was lying on the ground as well, glasses uselessly at his side. He'd forgotten to put them on.

"So…" Rose stumbled over the words as she breathed in the steam of the drink given to her, instantly feeling warmer. She wanted to ask him what had happened, where they were, where her Doctor was, what they were going to do. But it seemed … wrong to jump into it. Any skill she claimed at small talk failed her, though, and the words stuck in her throat. "So … how've you been?"

"Oh," said the Doctor, another grin coming on as he twirled in his chair anxiously. The couch opposite him that Rose perched on was soft, and obviously a new addition. "Oh, we just had an excellent adventure, saved the universe, exploded the TARDIS, spun back time. Marvelous stuff."

"With Amy," Rose added before she could stop herself, then stared into the depths of her coffee. Or at least she'd been told it was coffee, but it was quite an unsettling shade of blue, and tasted like a mix of apples and ramen noodles.

"Yes," nodded the Doctor, not seeming to notice the touch of jealousy to her voice. "Yes, with Amy. And River."

"River?"

"Oh, new friend. You'll like her. Our paths are sort of crossing … like a mish-mash of timey things. She gets younger, I get older."

"She gets younger," she laughed sardonically, thinking of her own approaching wrinkles and feeling a pang of fresh jealousy. "Wish I had such a superpower."

The Doctor didn't pick up on her tone. "Well, it's not so much a superpower, as a trans-del–"

"_Why did you leave me?_" burst Rose as she slammed her mug down, apparently no longer able to skirt around the subject as easily as him. He frowned, and she almost stopped. "We were so good together, Doctor … I would've travelled with you forever. I didn't want to live a normal life. How could I?"

"Are you saying I made the wrong decision?" he asked quietly, brow furrowing as he looked at her, too directly.

"No!" she said dejectedly. "I'm saying it wasn't your decision to make!"

"You got your happily ever after," he insisted.

"I didn't want a happily ever after," she fought. "I didn't want my story to end."

"It hasn't," the Doctor nodded. "You're here now, aren't you? In the TARDIS. Where you belong."

"But it's too late now … I _don't_ belong here anymore, no matter how much I want to." Rose tucked her feet underneath her, unable to meet the man's eyes anymore. "I want to go home, Doctor. I thought I wanted to be back here, but I just want home now. You forced me to live a normal life, and I realized it wasn't the traveling through time and space that I had missed, all right?" She sighed, stomach twisting angrily at his blank, studying expression, and sipped her coffee again. "I need to find the Doctor – my Doctor – and go."

"Find your Doctor? Handy?" The Doctor's eyes widened. "You _lost_ him?"

"Not on purpose!" she defended. "And don't call him that. He's the Doctor, as much as you are."

"Well, isn't that a different tune than last time…" The Doctor leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes.

"He could be dead," Rose insisted, ignoring the prod. "Or lying in a ditch somewhere, bleeding out. Or lost forever. He can't regenerate like you."

"He might be able to," the Doctor mumbled. "There's never been a human-time-lord metacrisis before."

"He can't. You know he can't."

There was a heavy silence between them for a moment. Rose numbed herself, almost sure he wasn't going to help her.

"Rose," he breathed.

"I was so angry at you," she said bitterly, almost in a trance as she gazed into the teal drink. "So angry, for the longest time. It was worse than the last time, because this time it was voluntary. Like you didn't want me anymore, like you'd found a babysitter and you were going to go off with Donna for adventures."

"I'm sorry," the Doctor told her, and she noted that he didn't correct her.

"But you know what happened?" she said, looking up. He didn't answer. "This time I got better." She sighed. "I didn't know it at the time, but the other Doctor was the best thing you ever did for me. I wasn't just better. I was happier."

He nodded. "It was the right thing."

Rose laughed sadly. "Yeah. It was."

The orange and blue lights danced over the coils and wires trimming the TARDIS. She'd never known it could be this colorful, this bright, this magical. She watched the Doctor's face, cast in a blue glow. He was so young now. His brown hair flopped over his forehead like it didn't know gravity, and when his bright eyes flicked back to her, it was up from under a raised brow. He was a child.

A nine-hundred-year-old child.

"All right," he finally sighed. "Let's find your Doctor."


End file.
